


F.A.M.I.L.Y.

by TenjounoTora



Series: Growing up Tracy [2]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Loss of Father, Mother's Death, loss of mother, wee!Alan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-07-19 21:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19980523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenjounoTora/pseuds/TenjounoTora
Summary: This was originally going to be a longer story about Alan growing up. However I've been struggling with it since Alan is so young and since he's such a good optimistic kid, I just couldn't think of things to happen to him in the few years he's lived. So instead this is going to be a group of stories about some of the most important moments of his life.





	1. A Mother Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A story about what happened when their mother died, something Alan no longer remembers.

Alan Tracy was the youngest of five. He was the baby of the family and everyone doted on him, but no one as much as his mother. She always held him and kept him close to her. That was something she hadn’t quite done with the others, but then that was before her second youngest, the boisterous Gordon.

She admitted early on she was a little scared that Gordon might try and play too hard with his new brother and hurt him, so she got one of those wraps and had Alan strapped to her most days.

It was only when he had gotten too heavy for her that she started to leave him in the playpen with Gordon who was now a year older than when Alan was born and might just be able to understand that he couldn’t play quite as rough with him as he did with his older brothers.

Alan loved his brothers. Gordon always made him laugh, and the others would talk, play, and read him stories. His father was always a great place to fall asleep on when he was around, but in his absence Scott or his mom would do.

When Alan was upset though, there was only one person he would call, his mother. All he had to do was cry and she’d be there, holding him, bouncing him, and telling him everything would be okay. It didn’t matter if he was hungry, dirty, or scared she was always there when he needed her.

Alan had just turned two when she had went away. They said it was for business, but of course Alan didn’t understand what that meant. He cried the first time she was not there, and most of the second day. Then they had her on the phone, her torso floating above the table as she talked to them all. Alan cried a little then too cause he wanted his mom to hug him and hold him close.

She promised him she’d be back though. Just another day or so and she’d be there to hug him and love on him.

They talked to her again the next day and the next. Then he was told she was coming home.

Alan didn’t really remember anything from the day their mother died. He was too young to understand what had happened, and for the longest time was confused as to why he couldn’t see his mom again.

That day he had constantly asked where his mom was. Kept telling everyone he wanted his mom.

At first his father and brothers laughed at him and told him soon. As the day went on he started to get shrugs and told that she’d be home that night. It wasn’t until after dinner that they had found out what had happened.

When their father had received the call he had stood in hall with his phone to his ear for a very long time. Alan watched curiously from his playpen, wondering if his father had broken down like one of Gordon’s toys.

Scott appeared from the kitchen still wiping his hands from cleaning up dinner. Their father seemed to jump when Scott touched him and Alan watched as Scott’s eyes grew wide with worry.

Scott guided his father into the living room and to his chair. "Virgil! Get John and come down. Something’s wrong!"

Alan jumped a little at the loudness of his brother’s voice. It wasn’t unusual for his brother’s to get loud, but Alan was sure something strange was going on.

"Daddy hurt?"

Scott glanced back at him. "I don’t know, Allie." Then he was gone and back again with a glass of water trying to get their father to drink it.

"Scotty? What’s wrong?" Virgil had appeared in the room followed by John, both looking a bit worried.

"He got a phone call and then started to cry." Scott forced the cup of water into his father’s hand and then moved over toward his brothers. "I’ve never seen him cry like this."

"Gordy?" Alan tugged on Gordon’s shirt. He had climbed into the playpen with him like he usually did when he wanted to play. "Daddy hurt?"

Gordon was frowning and just ignored his little brother. Even he knew something bad was going on.

Alan pouted a little he didn’t really like being ignored. His lip stuck out he slapped the edge of the playpen with his hands and called out to the brother that would always come. "Birdy! Birdy Birdy Birdy!"

It was a nickname Alan had somehow come up with, having had trouble pronouncing Vs and then from a book Virgil read to him often. They had tried to correct him at first, but eventually gave up.

"Daddy hurt?" Alan asked once more as Virgil picked him up and held him on his hip.

"I don’t know."

"Scott, I’m—" Their father shook his head and took in a deep breath. "I need—I need to tell you something. Sit." He set the glass that was in his hand down on the table next to his chair while he waved the elder away to go sit on the couch.

John was already sitting so Virgil had set Alan next to him. Gordon had climbed out of the playpen and was trying to climb up onto the couch, and Virgil helped him so he was on John’s other side. Virgil sat on Gordon’s other side and waited.

Scott didn’t move though.

"Scott, go. Your brothers are going to need you."

"Dad, what is—"

"Go!"

Their father’s voice as a little sharper than normal, even when he was scolding Gordon for something and Alan wasn’t the only one that jumped.

Scott was hesitant but slowly moved over to the couch and sat next to Virgil on the very edge, ready to jump to his feet if needed.

Their father was silent for a long time. Alan squirmed a little, getting as close to John as he could without actually being on his lap, though that’s really what he wanted.

"Johnny?" Alan looked up at his brother.

"Shh." John patted Alan’s leg and then rested his arm around the youngest holding him tight to his side.

There was another long silence and their father finally sighed. "I just got off the phone with the Sheriff." There was another long pause. "The FAA had contacted him—" Their father seemed to choke on something and he coughed and cleared his throat then reached up and wiped at his eyes. "Th-they found your mother’s plane. T-traced it’s origin to the airfield here. Bill was able to i-identify it—"

"Dad, where’s mom?" Scott was on his feet, his hands in fists.

Their father lowered his head into his hands and chocked back another sob.

"Dad!"

Their father shook his head. "N-no survivors."

"No!" Scott stomped his foot and scrunched his eyes closed.

Alan just blinked and looked over at his brothers. Gordon was crawling on Virgil asking what 'no survivors' meant. Virgil was trying to push him off and eventually slid off the couch and left. John next to him had pulled his knees to his chest and hid his face in them but as soon as Gordon had turned to him, John too stood and stormed up stairs.

It was just him and Gordon left on the couch, Scott was next to his father demanding answers. Alan was confused to say the least. He hadn’t understood what his father had said, nor why his brothers were suddenly so upset.

All Alan wanted at that moment was his mother. She would know what to do, she would hug him and comfort him. So Alan did what he knew would always bring his mother to him—he started to cry.

He cried for a very long time before Scott finally came over and sat down with him and Gordon. That wasn’t what he had wanted so he continued to cry, calling for his mom.

He cried for a long time, but his mother never came.

The next week had been confusing for the little two year old. He still didn’t understand what was going on.

Grandma Tracy had shown up a day later and taken the three youngest to the city to buy some nice clothes. Alan had thought it was a fun day, but his brother’s were still sad so he wasn’t sure if he should be sad or not.

The next day they were forced to go to some strange building dressed up in their new clothes. Gordon wouldn’t go in and screamed until they finally let him stay out in the lobby.

Grandma Tracy carried Alan for the most part so while he was upset that Gordon was upset he had no choice but to go into the building with his grandma.

The room was large, with a pretty box at one end. His grandma carried him up to the box and he was shocked when he saw his mother laying there like she was asleep.

"Mommy!" Alan leaned away from his grandma and tried to reach for her.

"Alan, no." Grandma Tracy pulled him away and set him down on the floor.

"I want Mommy!" Alan grabbed at the fabric that covered the table the casket sat on trying his best to climb up it.

"Scott, why don’t you take him out with Gordon for now." His father was there and picked him up handing him over to his biggest brother.

Scott nodded and took his brother. Alan did not want to go though. His mom was right there, she was just asleep. "Mommy!"

Scott took him into the lobby and sat him down in the chair next to Gordon who was still crying.

"Scotty, I want Mommy!!"

"Not right now, Allie. Grandma and Dad want to say goodbye first."

"Bye? She’s asleep!"

"She’s not going to wake up, Allie." Gordon had his arms crossed, his eyes still wet from crying.

Alan’s lip started to tremble a little. He didn’t understand anything. His mom was right there, in the other room asleep. Why wouldn’t she wake up? She as right there!

Alan started to cry, he couldn’t help it. He wanted his mom and everyone was doing what they could to keep her from him.

Scott knelt down in front of him, his other grandparents behind him—his mother’s parents that is—they were both red-eyed and crying as well.

"Allie. Mom is gone. What you see in there is all that is left, she’ll never wake up so we’re here just to say goodbye."

Alan still didn’t quite understand, but he cried anyways. He didn’t want to say goodbye to his mother. Gordon pulled him into a hug and cried with him.

The two youngest stayed side by side the entire time they were there. Grandma Tracy stayed with them during the funeral and then everyone seemed to take turns after. They were eventually loaded into a car and drove to a place Alan had never been before. The box was now sitting above a hole in the ground and Alan didn’t like the look of that.

More words were said that he didn’t understand and then his father was holding him as they passed by the casket and laid a flower on top. His father then took him back to the car and they drove home.

It was a confusing and exhausting day. His father laid him down in his playpen as soon as they had gotten home and Alan fell right asleep. He slept through all the people that had come and all the food that had been brought. He woke up a bit when his father took him to his room. Gordon immediately curled up with him and they both fell asleep.

Alan woke up crying for his mother often, and Gordon did as well. Grandma Tracy left to go back home herself a couple of weeks later, and then their father accepted the offer from their mother’s parents to move in with them on the ranch.

Once moved they started to get back into a routine. The ranch brought back memories of their mother and they would still break out crying randomly it seemed and Alan would cry too—upset that his brothers were upset more than anything.

During these times he wanted nothing more than his mother, but usually got a brother instead. Usually it was Scott or Virgil, rarely was it John or Gordon.

It wasn’t that John or Gordon weren’t sympathetic to their little brother, it was more that they were also still struggling with the loss of their mother. For most of the time they were okay; they went to school, made new friends, and had good grades. But when they were alone, they weren’t always okay—especially when Alan started to cry for her. Gordon especially would start to cry as well.

But slowly a new normality was found and even Alan got used to not having his mother around and would soon forget what few memories he had of her. He would never forget her though, there were too many pictures and stories for him to listen to for that to happen.


	2. The Move: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year after their mother's death Alan and his brothers are taken away from their home and on to their next great adventure with their father on Tracy Island.

Alan was crying, big wet tears were falling down his small round face as he hid behind the curtains in the living room. 

This was quite the contrast to the happy toddler from the night before. For some reason that Alan wasn’t worried why Grandma Tracy had suddenly said that they could run around the house and play. So, Alan had run, laughed, and giggled as he chased and was chased by each of his brothers. They played tag, hide and seek, and other games that had, till then, been solely outside games. Then their father showed up with pizza and cola and they ate and laughed some more. Gordon had bet Alan that he could eat an entire pizza on his own, and he about had till their grandma caught on and wouldn’t let him have any more. 

It had started to get dark out and their father had turned on a few of the camping lanterns they had to make it seem more like some strange, fun camping trip they were on. Scott, Virgil, and John took turns reading from their favorite books while Alan and Gordon tried to act out what was going on. 

They had finally gone to sleep in sleeping bags on the living room floor—though Gordon and Alan had both abandoned their own beds to curl up with their older brothers. 

However, The mood the next morning was drastically different and the toddler hadn’t quite understood what was going on. 

He and his brothers had been standing outside, waiting by the car. As they stood there Alan was starting to realize just what was happening. He looked from his brothers to the car and then to the house. Each moment they stood there the more scared he got. Scott had been holding his hand, but let go to help their father with something and Alan took that opportunity to sneak back into the house. 

The curtain he was hiding behind was the only thing left in the living room. His dad’s chair was gone. The couch he’d sit on with his brothers wasn’t there either. Even the toys they kept in the corner of the room were gone. The toys in his room were gone too, as was his bed and his posters. Everything was gone from inside the house except the curtains. 

They had been talking about going on an adventure, exploring a jungle, playing on a beach, and swimming with the fish. It was just like one of the books his brothers read to them. It had sounded amazing and it was all Alan could think about.

That was until he had realized that they would never be going home again. 

"Scott, I found him." 

Alan sniffed and looked up as the curtain was pulled aside. 

"Hey, what are you doing here?" John squatted down in front of him and reached out to wipe the wetness from his cheeks. 

Alan pulled himself into a tighter ball and buried his face in his knees. His voice was thick as he sniffed and wiped at his nose. "I don’t wanna go."

"Why? I thought you were excited about our adventure. It’s all you’ve been talking about for weeks." 

"I wanna play outside, see stars! I-I wanna ride Stardust with Mamaw." 

"Well, we’ll be able to see stars from our new home and we’ll find new places to play. But I’m afraid Stardust is going to a new owner. Remember Mamaw and Papaw aren’t going to be taking care of the horses anymore." 

"But why? I like it here!" Alan looked up at his brother his lower lip slightly out. "Don’t you like it?" 

"I—" John looked away and at the empty room they were in. He took in a deep breath and sighed. "This place—It reminds me too much of Mom." 

"But Mama makes you happy. I wanna know about Mama more!" Alan looked back down. He had mixed feelings about their mother. It had only been a year since her death, but he was already quickly forgetting what little he remembered about her. "Don’t you want to remember her?" 

"It’s not—" John ran a hand through his hair and stood up, letting the curtain fall back into place. 

"John, what’s taking so long? Dad’s ready to go." 

Alan buried his head back down in his knees. He wasn’t crying anymore, but he was still scared and very confused. 

There was a bit of silence in the room and then a small sniffle that did not come from Alan. He heard some mumbling from Scott and then footsteps as one of them left. The curtain was then lifted again and Scott squatted down next to him. "Hey." 

Alan peeked up at his brother his lip still trembling a little. "I don’t understand." 

Scott nodded and settled down on the floor. "What don’t you understand?" 

"Why we leaving?" 

"Because Dad found us a new home." 

"Why?" 

Scott took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Because it’s time. We have a lot of good memories here, but right now there are more sad ones and sometimes it hurts to think of them." 

"Because Mama?" 

"Yeah." Scott opened his arms inviting Alan to come into his lap. 

Alan hesitated a little, but it was hard to resist and crawled into his brother’s embrace burying his face in his chest. 

"We all loved Mom, a lot. We miss her. Being here reminds us that she’s gone and never coming back." 

Alan could feel Scott nuzzle the top of his head a little. 

"A new home will help us to move on." 

"You wanna forget about Mama?" 

"No, never." Scott squeezed Alan a little. "And anyways, this house belongs to us. If we really want to come back, we can. But right now we need to do what is best for the family and moving I think is the right thing to do right now." 

Alan was quiet for a moment. He still wasn’t sure he understood, but he trusted his brother and knew he wouldn’t lie to him. He looked up and forced a small smile. "Family stays together?" 

"Right." Scott smiled a little himself and wiped a little bit of wetness from his eyes. "So, are you ready to start our adventure?" 

Alan’s smile faltered and then disappeared. "I’m still scared." 

"That’s okay. I think we all are, but as long as we’re together we can do anything." 

Alan gave his brother another squeeze and then crawled off of his lap and stood. "I’m ready. I think." 

Scott nodded and stood himself. He held out his hand and Alan took it letting him lead him from the room and back outside. 

"About time, I almost sent in the cavalry to find you." Their father was leaning on the top of the car a smile wide on his face. 

"You can’t do that, Dad!" Gordon put his hands on his hips and looked up at him. "You gave Uni and Starry to Mr. Dell. Plus Mom said the horses were never allowed in the house, even for cookies." 

Their father chuckled as he pushed away from the car. "I do hope she told you that before you tried." 

"Opie was only half way in the house." Gordon shrugged as he climbed into the car and sat down in his booster seat. 

Scott lifted Alan into his own seat, buckling him down before squeezing past him to sit in the middle between his two youngest brothers. 

"Everyone ready?" Their father was behind the wheel, their grandma in the passenger seat, and Virgil and John were packed in the back with their luggage. "You okay, Allie?" 

Alan nodded, but didn’t look at his dad. "Yeah." 

Scott reached up and squeezed his knee a little. "He just realized that we aren’t coming back for awhile." 

"It’s not the first time we’ve moved. We’ve only been here for a little over a year." 

"Jeff. This is the only home Alan can remember. Need I remind you the first time you moved with Scott and Virgil? They weren’t exactly excited either." 

Their father sighed but kept a small smile. He reached back and tugged on the toe of Alan’s shoe. "Hey, I promised this was going to be an adventure and it will be. Plus, we’ll be back here eventually. I have plans for this place—assuming all five of your approve. It is yours after all." 

A small smile creeped onto Alan’s lips and he nodded. 

"Alright. Let the adventure begin." 

Alan strained in his seat to watch the old house disappear as they went under the gate with the ranch’s name. When he could no longer see it he settled back in his seat and looked up at his biggest brother. "Scotty, what can we do at the new home?" 

His brother looked down at him with a smile. "Well, we’ll probably either sleep, or explore the new house first. Maybe even a bit of both." 

"I’m going to explore." Gordon was bouncing a little in his seat. "I bet Dad’s built all kinds of hidden rooms and I’m going to find all of them." 

"If you can find all the hidden rooms, I’ll promote you to oldest." 

"Second oldest. Scott is too serious, I couldn’t do that." 

"Oh, and you think being the second eldest is easy do you?" Virgil reached over and ruffled Gordon’s hair. 

"I’d be better at it than you!" 

Alan couldn’t help but laugh at his brothers’ banter. If they were going on some adventure, he was glad they were all going together. 

It didn’t take them long to reach their destination—at least the first of a few before they reached their new home. It was a small airfield, only a couple planes sitting by one of the two hangers on the grounds. Their father pulled up next to the planes and parked the car. 

Alan was already trying to undo his seatbelt when Scott reached over and helped him finish. 

"Are we flying now?" 

"Yep, we’re taking Grandma’s plane to California. Then we’re changing to a new plane Dad bought." 

"Is it faster?" 

"I don’t know, I haven’t seen it, but I’m thinking it’s going to be really neat." Scott picked Alan up out of his seat and onto the packed earth of the field. 

"Scott, I need you over here, let your brothers help with the luggage." 

"Allie, go get your things and help Virg." 

"Okay!" Alan had his smile back. The knowledge they were going to be flying made him practically forget what had made him upset earlier. 

He made his way to the back where Virgil was helping their grandma pull out the luggage. Alan took his rocket shaped backpack, a stuffed alien he had somehow gotten attached to, and then grabbed the end of one of the sleeping bags they had used the previous night and dragged it behind him to the plane where John was taking things and packing them away in the back. 

"Allie, why don’t you come on up and help?" John held out his hands and took Alan by his lifting him straight up and into the plane. 

Alan giggled as he swung his legs back in forth so he could get his feet on the edge of the doorway. He helped John—mainly just following his motions and copying what he did—as they loaded up the plane. 

His grandmother brought the last two things—his seat and Gordon’s booster seat—and they were both strapped in as the others climbed in and took their own seats. It was only a minute or so later that Scott pulled himself into the plane followed by his father. Scott took the co-pilot seat and had started to strap himself in, but glanced up when his father hadn’t taken his seat. 

"I think you’ll find you’re in the wrong seat Scott." 

"I get to fly?" Scott’s eyes were big and his smile about to burst.

"You’ve still got to get a few hours in before you get your license and we’ll need you to be able to fly to the mainland if I’m not available." 

Alan smiled at the enthusiasm Scott was suddenly showing. "Scotty’s flying!" 

"Don’t crash Scott! I’d like to get home in one piece!" Gordon cackled as their eldest changed seats in front of them. 

"Plus it will give you practice with the peanut gallery back there." Their father chuckled a little as he strapped himself in. 

Scott just ignored everything as he pulled on his headset and started up the plane. The others were dead silent as the plane taxied and Scott asked for permission and clearance to take flight. They had flown enough times with their father to know that the pilot needed to concentrate on what they were doing going up and coming down from the sky. 

Once at altitude and on their way Gordon started up with his plans. "After I find all the hidden rooms I’m gonna go swimming in the pool and then go down to he beach." 

"Gordon, no going to the beach on your own. Your grandma or me need to be with you."

"Awww, why?" 

Their father turned around to face his family. "This goes for everyone right now. The jungle around the villa is dense and you can easily get lost in it and the currents around the island can be quite strong and unpredictable. The last thing we want is for one of you to get lost or get sucked into a lava tube by the currents. Not until I am sure you understand the risks and know how to deal with both issues you are not to leave the house alone. At the very least Scott needs to go with you, though I trust he knows well enough not to go until he understands how to navigate the island as well." 

There was a chorus of 'yes, father' from everyone on board. A pause and then Alan looked up at his father. "What’s a lava tube?" 

"John, you want to take that one?" Their father smiled as he turned back around in his seat. 

Alan looked up and strained to look behind him at his brother, but his seat was just too bulky to allow him to do that. But John had leaned forward a little so he could be heard. 

"You know about volcano’s right? Well, the lava doesn’t just come out of the top. Sometimes it comes out of the sides creating its own tubes to escape into the ocean." 

"We’re living next to a volcano?" Alan’s eyes widened as he looked over at Gordon who shared the shock a little. 

"Cool!" 

"It’s not an active one. Dad made sure it was dormant before building the house."

"What’s a-door-ment?" Alan asked frowning a little. He really hated not knowing as much as his brothers, but he did like learning from them. 

"Dormant." John enunciated the word correcting Alan. "It means that the volcano’s dead. It will never erupt again." 

"Aww, that would have been really cool." 

"It would have also killed you, fish." Virgil laughed as he looked up over his sketch pad, a smile across his face. 

"Maybe, but it still would have been cool." 

Alan giggled at his brothers as they laughed. Their grandma handed them their gaming pads and Alan and Gordon spent the rest of the flight playing games. 

The plane they were flying in was actually one of their grandma’s old ones. Their father had kept it going, loving the way the old plane felt when he flew it. However, it was not very fuel efficient and took longer for them to get where they were going than a newer one would have. 

As it was, it was just over three hours later that they were finally making their approach into a small airport on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Small was a bit relative. To Alan it seemed huge. It was a public airport like the one they had left from, but the runways were all paved and there were no less than a dozen or two hangers crowded along one side. There was an actual air traffic tower as well and Alan ignored his game as Scott started talking to the person inside the tower to arrange their landing. 

The flight and landing were all text book and their father congratulated Scott with a firm hand on his shoulder. Alan watched as they taxied up to a hanger. Their father and Virgil climbed out of the plane and ran over to open the doors to the hanger so Scott could park the plane inside. 

The hanger was huge, bigger than the one they had near the ranch. There was a good reason too, the hanger at the ranch only held two small planes—the one they were in and a smaller two person one that his older borthers did most of their flying lessons in. This hanger had space for the their grandma’s plane and a larger, sleeker one that sat next to it. 

Virgil had gone right over to it after the doors had been opened and was already walking around it and admiring it. As soon as the plane was shut down, and everyone was out, they had joined him. 

"Jeff, how in the world did you afford something like this on top of the island?" Their grandma had her hands on her hips, but it was easy to tell she was just as impressed with the plane as her grandsons. 

"It’s a corporate plane. Belongs to Tracy Industries to get the higher ups to where they need to go—aka get me to the office once in a while." Their father laughed as he petted the plane like it was some kind of pet. "We’ve got two of them. One for everyone else and this one for me. It’ll be our main link to and from the island which means everyone will need to learn how to fly her. She’s a little different than the props you’re used to." 

"Man, even I’m excited to learn how to fly this thing, I’m surprised Scott’s stayed as quiet—" Virgil looked around, his eyebrows lowering a little. "Where is Scott?" 

"He’s inside." Alan was sitting on the small set of stairs that had appeared when Scott had opened the hatch to the plane. "Come see. It’s awesome!" 

Alan stood and made his way up the stairs and into the plane. He was quickly followed by everyone else. There was murmurings of approval of the interior but Alan didn’t pay attention as he made his way to the cockpit and tried to crawl up in the co-pilot seat. 

Scott laughed and turned to help his brother. 

"Scotty, you going to fly?" 

Scott laughed a little as he relaxed back in the chair. "No, I honestly don’t know how to fly this thing. I mean, I could probably figure it out, but I’d want some practice before going up with everyone with me." He reached over and ruffled Alan’s hair bit. "Come on, let’s go get the luggage moved so we can get going." 

Alan smiled and allowed his brother to pick him up and set him back down on his feet before he led the way back into the cabin. It was empty now, and he found everyone at the other plane already working on unloading it. 

It didn’t take long for them to move their things from one plane to the other and then to get settled in the much more plush jet. Alan and Gordon both pleaded for window seats, but there was enough to go around so there really wasn’t much of an argument. 

Alan and Gordon both let out whoops of joy as the plane took off at speeds they had never experienced before. They were excited and peered out of the window watching the land quickly disappear behind them. Once there was nothing but ocean in sight they started to get antsy and their grandma let them stand and wander around the plane a bit. 

This flight took about as long as the previous one, even though they covered a much farther distance. Their brother’s voice came on through the speakers and told everyone to look out the windows. The plane banked and suddenly an island was right there. 

"That’s home?" Alan’s eyes and smile were wide. 

"Look at that pool!" Gordon squealed as he jumped up and down. 

"Your father sure has outdone himself on this one." Their grandma was smiling as well. "Alright, everyone in your seats. I’m sure they’re wanting to land as much as we are." 

Alan tried his best to climb into his, but needed a brother’s help, and once he was settled Virgil helped him buckle in. Scott’s voice came on once again to give them warning that they were starting their landing procedures. The plane banked a couple of more times lining up with the runway. The plane was pointing down a bit more than normal, but then brought up again and a moment later a bump and the squealing of the tires could be heard. 

They all strained to see where the plane was going to park and strangely instead of just going straight ahead, it veered off to a small door in the side of the mountain. This door opened automatically and they made their way in." 

Scott appeared in the cabin just as the plane stopped and the engines had been turned off. "Dad said that he doesn’t quite have the elevator up to the main house going yet so we’re going to take the stairs along the outside. Everyone needs to grab as much as they can so we can limit the number of trips, there’s quite a few steps apparently." 

There was some grumbling but everyone filed out of the plane and started loading up their arms with whatever they could carry. Alan had his rocket backpack on again and his grandma had stuffed his toy between him and his backpack so he could use both hands to carry—or rather drag—one of the sleeping bags. 

The trek to the house was a long one and Alan eventually sat down tired and annoyed at the steps. John and Virgil both passed him laughing a little, but when Scott got to him he made him stand and get going again. 

He hadn’t been far from the top and when the house finally came into view and a smile blossomed onto his lips. "Cool!" 

"I’m glad you like it." His father had been right behind him and pushed him forward some more. 

Alan sped up to a trot and made his way up to the bottom level where the kitchen was, dropped the sleeping bag and made a beeline up the stairs. He ran around the lounge a little and then made his way out onto the deck that overlooked the pool a little. 

"Daddy! This is awesome!" 

"Just be careful up there." 

"Jeff, shouldn’t you have put a railing up? If anything to keep Gordon from diving into the pool from up there?" 

"I thought about it, but decided against it for various reasons. The boys will just have to learn not to try." 

Alan looked up and suddenly Gordon was next to him smiling just as wide as he was. "Let’s go explore the rest of the house. We gotta find our rooms!" 

Alan jumped to his feet and followed his brother into the mountain. They came across a game room, a library, and a theater as they made their way up the stairs to the upper levels. 

They finally came to the row of doors that were their rooms and started opening all the doors looking for what would be their rooms. 

Alan for the most part just followed Gordon into each of the rooms, barely looking at them before leaving them again. 

"This is definitely my room." Gordon flopped down on the bed and looked up at the fish that were painted on the ceiling. 

Alan climbed up and flopped down on top of him. "Where’s my bed?" 

Gordon laughed a little. "In your room probably." 

"Who do I sleep with?" Alan was so used to sharing rooms with his brothers he expected nothing else in the new home. 

"Just you and your alien. Come on, it’s probably next door." Gordon sat up and took Alan’s hand. 

They went to the next room down. The bed was shaped like a rocket and there were planets and stars on the walls and ceiling. Alan was excited at seeing his bed and jumped into it immediately. 

They didn’t have long to explore their rooms before their father’s voice came over some hidden speakers calling them back down to the kitchen. Gordon made it down first, but only because Alan was still slow on going down the stairs, needing to take it one step at a time and hold onto the railing. But he made it soon after and was picked up by his father and sat down at one of the tall chairs at the table. 

"Alright, with a new house comes with some new rules." There were a couple of groans around the table, mostly from Gordon, but Alan just had his head in his hands and listened. "During the next few weeks we will be having family meetings learning about the island and how to get around. No one is to go out wandering until we’ve had these meetings. There aren’t many wild animals out there, mainly birds and lizards, but there are some nasty bugs so you need to be able to recognize them and stay away. Understood?" 

There was a chorus of yes’ before their father continued. 

"There is to be no diving into the pool from anywhere other than the side of the pool." Their father was looking directly at Gordon at this comment, and the young boy pouted and sunk down in his chair a little. "There are some huts down by the only stretch of beach on the island. I will be taking you down there so you know where, but no one is to be in the ocean without either myself, your grandma, Scott, or Virgil with you. There are some very unpredictable currents around the island and until we’ve got them figured out, I don’t want you boys getting caught up in them. Is that understood Gordon?" 

"Yes, sir." Gordon pouted again as Alan giggled. 

"I’ll need you three to help me keep an eye on Gordon and Alan. Make sure they don’t wander off and get into trouble." He was looking at his three eldest now who nodded. "John, I know you’re going to want to find a good stargazing spot, but I’m going to have to ask you to wait a week or so. For now you can do it from the pool deck and if it’s late enough the lights in the house will go to night mode so they won’t interfere too much." 

John nodded but looked a bit down. 

"Don’t worry. I think I’ve already got a spot but the path just isn’t completely finished, give me time and I promise you won’t regret it." Their father then turned to Scott. "There are no established paths for hiking let alone running, so you’ll have to be content with the treadmill in the gym for now. Maybe once we’ve gone through navigation on the island you can help me plan out some paths." 

"Yes, I’d like that." Scott was smiling like they all were, excited now that they were there. 

"I will be doing a lot of work here on the island, but it is important for you to know that you may not be able to find me if you just go looking. There are these communicators around the house that you can contact me on, that is the easiest and fastest way to find me if you need to. Understood?" 

Everyone nodded and mumbled yes. 

"Do you have anything else to add Mom?" 

"No running in the house like always, last night was special. Otherwise all house rules as before are still in place." 

"Alright, I know you might be tired, but we can’t go to sleep yet. Got to try and stay up as long as we can. " 

"How about we have a quick lunch and then hike down to the huts. Then when we come back we can maybe do something else." Scott was nodding his head toward the pool but Alan didn’t quite understand what that meant. 

"I think that sounds like a wonderful idea. Virgil, why don’t you help me make up some sandwiches." 

Virgil jumped from his seat and made it to the kitchen ahead of their grandma and pulled things out of the fully packed fridge. 

Sandwiches were quickly made and just as quickly devoured. Everyone helped clean up and soon they were off down a path toward a lower part of the island. It took them over a half hour to get down to the huts, but once down there Alan followed Gordon as he ran through every one of them inspecting them. Only after they had been in all of them did their father lead them down to the beach. He gave everyone another heavy warning to not go into the water, but otherwise allowed them to play with the waves and explore the beach a little. Gordon went into the water as far as he father would let him and Alan shrieked in laughter as he chased and was chased by the small waves while his older brothers wandered the beach exploring while the youngest played. 

They stayed down there for over an hour before making their way back up to the house. Once there their father announced that they could get changed and get into the pool. Gordon was the first to disappear but John took Alan’s hand and helped him back up the stairs toward their rooms where most of their stuff had been delivered days ahead of them. 

John had to help Alan find his trunks, but after about the third box they found them and he helped Alan get changed before going to find his own. While John was busy looking through his things Virgil took Alan down to join the others. 

Gordon was already in the pool splashing and diving down into the deep waters. Their grandma stood ready at the edge of the kitchen with sunscreen in hand and stopped them both to apply it before they went out. 

Their dad was waiting on him at the edge of the pool with some floats for his arms. Once they were on Alan held his breath and jumped in. He didn’t go far down because of the floats so he was above the water again in no time. Gordon had sped up to him and was in his face before he could even wipe his eyes and took his arms encouraging him to kick. 

Alan loved swimming with his brothers and once Gordon got tired and wanted to dive around some one of his other brothers would take him and play with him. They eventually got him up on the slide—it was taller than Alan had first thought and scared him a little but Scott was behind him ready to go down with him so he knew it would be alright. Scott counted to three and down they went. The first second scared him but then he let out a squeal of delight right before they hit the water. He came up spluttering a little, Scott right next to him, begging to go again. 

They were pulled out of the pool for a dinner of hotdogs and hamburgers. Alan practically inhaled his hotdog and asked for another one, but his second one only got half eaten as the long day finally caught up with him and he found his head drooping with a piece of hotdog halfway to his mouth.

He woke up a little when he smelled his father’s cologne and snuggle deeper into his arms. As soon as his head hit the pillow though, he could remember nothing more. 

Alan slept hard up until a point. He was tired, it was still dark, but he could not get back to sleep. He pulled his blankets over his head, but that didn’t help. It was so quiet in his room, he didn’t like it. He was so used to having a brother or two in the room, listening to their breathing and grunts, it helped him feel safe. But with this amount of quiet, it was just impossible to sleep. 

Every shadow that danced across the room made him think someone was walking in front of his door. Every creek of the house from the wind outside made him think that everything was going to collapse and fall on him. Sometimes, having an overactive imagination was not a good thing at all. 

It took him some time to face the shadows but he finally got out of bed—his alien in hand—and peeked into the hallway. The night sky shone down from above him. There was no moon in the sky which made the hall quite dark, but the stars twinkled and gave Alan a bit of courage. 

All the doors around him were dark, but one. The farthest door glowed faintly so he hugged the wall and made his way to it. 

He opened the door a crack and found a small light on. Virgil was sitting up in bed with his sketchbook in his lap. 

Virgil looked up at the movement in the shadows. "Hey, what are you doing up?" He laid down the book and motioned for Alan to come in. 

"I can’t sleep." Alan climbed up into his bed and settled himself in Virgil’s lap. 

"Yeah, me neither." Virgil wrapped his arms around his little brother and squeezed him a little. "So, how do you like the new house?" 

Alan shrugged a little. "It’s okay. I like the pool." 

"Yeah, that pool is pretty nice. Is there something you don’t like about being here?" 

"Room’s too quiet." 

Virgil laughed a little at that. "You’re telling me you miss Gordon talking in his sleep?" 

Alan shrugged his shoulders a little. "He’s funny." 

"Is that all?" 

Alan was quiet for a moment as he cuddled closer to Virgil. "Scared. Don’t wanna be alone." 

Virgil frowned a little, unsure of where this sudden fear was coming from. "But we’re right here. Just next door." 

"Mama was next door too." 

Virgil’s breath got caught in his chest, his throat tightening. It had been something they’d tell Alan and Gordon when their mother was away. She had to make short trips to a school the next state over once or twice a year. Her trips were usually a few days at most, but when the smallest ones started to miss her they would tell them that she was just next door and would be home soon. 

She had been on her way home from one of these trips when they had lost her. 

His grip on his little brother tightened and he buried his face in his hair. "Oh, Allie. Why didn’t you ever say anything?" 

"Gordon talked and Daddy snored." Alan snuggled into his brother and wrapped his arms around his brother’s arms. "Too quiet here." 

Virgil planted a kiss on the top of Alan’s head and then rested his chin on it. "Do you know why Dad brought us here?" 

Alan leaned over and looked up at his brother. "Why?"

"Among other things, to protect us. He’s working on stuff that will protect everyone on this planet. He’s going to become a superhero." 

Alan’s face lit up at that. "Is he gonna wear a cape!" 

Virgil laughed. "No, probably not. But everyone in the world is going to know his name. He’s going to save a lot of people." Virgil looked down at Alan and smiled. "You know, we do have a high-tech intercom system in this house." 

Alan watched as Virgil leaned over and grabbed the small round computer that was in each of their rooms. 

"If you wake up again and are scared you can turn on the intercoms in any of our rooms, or if it’s really bad, all of them." Virgil pushed a couple of buttons and there was a pause before some sounds started to come over the speaker.

At first it was just some fuzz—white noise—and then the snore of their father followed by a grunt and the clearing of his throat then silence again. There was some ruffling as someone turned in their sheets, and then some mumbling from Gordon about swimming and racing some fish. 

"See. And if that doesn’t help, you know you’re always welcome to come crawl into bed with any of us, right." 

Alan had a soft smile as he snuggled against Virgil—his eyelids drooped as he tried to stay awake. He felt his brother move him a little, laying him down and tucking him in next to him. The last thing Alan remembered was a familiar song as Virgil ran his fingers through his hair.


	3. The Move: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone tries to settle down on the island but more changes challenge the family and Alan.

The Move: Part 2

When Alan woke up the next day he was still curled up next to Virgil. He didn’t want to move though and tried to force himself back to sleep, but his stomach decided to growl and make sure he knew he was hungry. 

He carefully crawled out of the bed and made his way out of his brother’s room. He slowly walked down a small flight of stairs and was just about to start down the next flight when he noticed a door had hadn’t seen the previous day. It was an elevator and luckily the buttons were low enough he could reach up and push the call button. A moment later there was a small ding and the doors opened. 

He stepped inside and looked for the button that would take him down to the kitchen. There were six white buttons in black text high up on the panel and were labeled with the floors of the house: kitchen, lounge, library, game room, bedroom level 1, and bedroom level 2. Alan reached up and hit the button labeled kitchen. As he did so he felt something move under his hand that rested on the metal below the buttons. 

It was a small door with a lock, though it hadn’t been locked properly from the looks of it. He opened the door and there was another set of buttons, these labeled with just letters and numbers: L1, L2, L3, H1, H2, H3, S1, S2, S3, M1,M2, M3. 

Alan tilted his head in wonder at where these buttons would lead and pressed the first one—L1. 

"Please insert key." It was a soft kind voice that requested the action and Alan looked and found a slot for a key at the top of this hidden box. 

"I don’t have key." There was no response to his statement so he closed the box just as the elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the kitchen. 

As soon as he stepped out he found that the sun was shining through a cloud of smoke and just a moment later an alarm started to sound. 

Alan put his hands over his ears as he inched his way toward the kitchen to see what was going on. 

"Mom, why didn’t you turn on the vents?" 

Alan turned to see his father appear at the bottom of the stairs that led up to the lounge. His father scooped him up and he kept one ear covered with his hand and the other pressed up against his father’s shoulder. 

Most of the smoke was making its way out of the open side of the room, but enough lingered that Alan nuzzled into his father’s shoulder a bit more. 

"I couldn’t find them. There are so many buttons in this place I don’t know what does what." 

There was a pause and then the hum as some fans started to pulled the smoke out of the air and the alarm was silenced a moment later. "The buttons are labeled mother if you’d just take a moment to look." 

"If you had just put in a plain simple kitchen then this wouldn’t have happened." 

Alan could hear his father’s chuckle through his chest and looked up at him. "I don’t think a simple kitchen would have saved the pancakes." It was said in a whisper that Alan was sure was only meant for him. 

He smiled and giggled himself. 

His father set him down at the table with a pat on the head before going to help his grandmother with breakfast. 

Alan laid his head on the table and watched his father and grandmother work in the kitchen. It was only a moment later that his brothers made their way down the stairs rubbing their eyes. 

"We heard the fire alarm, is breakfast ready?" Scott was smiling as he picked Gordon up and set him in the chair across from Alan. Gordon laid his head down clearly not quite ready to wake up yet. Virgil sat down next to Alan and John next to Gordon. Scott went into the kitchen to see if he could help. 

It wasn’t much later that pancakes were set in front of them along with a large crock of maple syrup. Alan grabbed the syrup and started to try and pour it on his stack of dark pancakes but it was taken from him by his father. 

"Let me help you, need to make sure there’s plenty for all of us." He smiled down as he poured a large portion on Alan’s plate before turning to his own. 

Alan licked his lips and picked up his fork doing his best to eat like his father was. 

"Dad! Dad!" Gordon was still chewing on a bite of his own pancake while attempting to make a tent out of the others on his plate. 

"Gordon, you don’t have to yell, your father is right there." Their grandma was at the end of the table waving her fork at him.

"But I want to go swimming." He let go of the pancakes on his plate and they fell, pushing some crumbs and syrup off the plate and onto the table. 

"You have to eat first." 

Alan looked up at his father who was pouring even more syrup onto his own plate watching his grandmother and Gordon with a smile.

"I’m not hungry." Gordon had pushed his plate away sending the pancakes off of it and onto the table. 

"Gordon Tracy, now you’re just making a mess." Their grandmother was on her feet, but stopped when their father raised his hand. 

"Let him be, Mom. I imagine he’s just a little grumpy from the trip and the time change." 

"So I can go swimming?" 

"Not right now. It’s alright if you don’t want to eat, but you do have to wait for everyone else to finish and help clean up." 

"Aw man." Gordon slumped in his chair and crossed his arms. 

"If you really want to go swimming as soon as you can, I might suggest that you start by cleaning up your own plate." 

Gordon’s smile came back with a vengeance and he grabbed his plate, slapped the pancakes that had slid off back onto it and slid out of his seat. 

Alan watched this with a small grin, Gordon was always the funniest of his brothers. 

Alan finished his own pancakes with little fuss as he watched Gordon climb back onto his chair and slap a soaking wet dishtowel onto the table to wipe up the syrup he’d spilled. 

Slowly one by one his other brothers finished and began cleaning up their own plates. Alan finally tugged on his father’s shirt. "I’m done." 

His father looked down at him and smiled. "Well take your plate to your grandma and have her wipe your mouth. John, if you’re done why don’t you take Gordon and Alan up and get changed to swim?" 

"Yes! Finally!" Gordon was standing in one of the chairs, eager to wipe the table as their brother’s stood to take their plates to the kitchen. He dropped the soaked towel where he was and jumped out of the chair before their grandma had finished wiping off Alan’s mouth. 

When his grandmother had deemed him clean he trotted over to where John was waiting and took his hand. 

They took the elevator back up and met Gordon in the hall—he already had his trunks on and was practically dancing in the hall. "Come on guys! Hurry up!" 

"Gordon, are those the same trunks that you wore yesterday?" 

"Yeah, so?" 

"They’re probably still wet." John sighed. "Take them off and find your other pair. Dad bought us all extra before we came." 

"What’s the difference? They’re just going to get wet again." 

"Gordon, please." 

"Fine." Gordon huffed as he pulled his trunks down and flung them at John before cackling as he ran down the hall buck naked. 

John just shook his head and led Alan into his room. 

Alan grabbed the trunks that were laying on the bathroom floor from the previous night. "They’re cold!"

"One reason why you probably don’t want to wear them." John smiled and held out his hand. "Toss them here, I’ll make sure they get into the dryer. Meanwhile you can start looking for your other pair. Should be in one of those boxes over there." 

John left to find his own trunks leaving Alan to search the boxes. Alan had to empty out both boxes and then half of another before he found the new pair his father had bought. He pulled them on and left his room to find John and see if he was ready yet. However, swimming was pushed from his mind when he saw John and Gordon standing with their ear to Virgil’s door. 

"Whacha doing?" 

Gordon put a finger to his mouth and shushed him. "Virgil’s crying." 

"Why?" Alan lowered his voice as he laid down on his stomach to see what he could hear through the crack at the bottom of the door. 

"That’s why we’re listening, now hush." 

"Both of you be quiet, I can’t hear." 

Alan glanced up at John, but his attention was caught by the voices in the room. 

"Virgil? You okay?" It was Scott’s voice, his frown evident. 

"Yeah, I’m fine." A sniff followed the comment and Alan frowned. 

"You knew this was a possibility. We talked about it before we even knew where we’d be moving to." 

"I know." Another sniff. "I’m just—I’m scared Dad’s just doing this so he can hide himself in his office again." 

"That’s why Grandma is here. You heard her, she promised she wouldn’t let Dad get too involved in his project that he’d forget us. Dad even said so as well." 

"He also thought he’d be able to take care of us after Mom died and then he went and locked himself in his office for a long time." 

"I know Dad was hard to talk to after Mom died. But he didn’t ignore us. We still had food and a place to live. He was just grieving too and was just as lost as we were without her. He regrets those months, you know that." 

"But that doesn’t mean he won’t do it again." 

"Virgil." There was a sigh and a second of silence. "I know it’s hard to trust Dad right now. You know how I felt then, and how upset I was when he first told us about moving again. We had just gotten things figured out, just settled into a good routine." 

"And now he’s going to send us away just as we start to get into another one." 

"We knew it was a possibility. We had already talked about it, right? But Grandma is here and it’s not like Dad’s going to go off to an office or anything. He’s right here if anyone needs him." 

"How can you be sure he won’t engulf himself in his work." 

"Dad has issues, I won’t deny it. But he wouldn’t do all of this—" There was a beat of silence and Alan imagined his brother swinging his arms around. "—if he didn’t believe in what he was doing. Right now he’s asking for our support in this—whatever it is—and I’m going to give it to him." 

"Do you think he’ll tell us what he’s doing?" 

"When he’s ready he will." There was another moment of silence. "We are together, that’s what is important. We’re living on an island in the middle of the South Pacific. There is going to be so much to do we won’t have time to worry." 

"Yeah, I guess." 

"It’s going to be okay Virg. I promise." 

It was quiet again, but Alan’s nose started to itch. He rubbed it, but that didn’t help and then he sneezed. 

"Alan!" Gordon hissed at him. 

Alan rubbed his nose with his hand and then wiped his hand on his shorts. "I couldn’t help it!" 

Scott laughed from the other side of the door. "Come in you three." 

John sighed as he pushed the door open and made his way past his two little brothers. He sat down backwards on the desk chair and rested his head on his arms. 

Alan scrambled to his feet and climbed up onto the bed and into Virgil’s lap facing him. "You said everything was going to be okay." 

Virgil frowned a little and pulled Alan into a hug. "It will be. I promise. I just—I just got a little scared for a moment, that’s all." 

Alan pushed himself away from Virgil so he could look up at him. "You sure?" 

"I’m sure." 

Alan frowned, his lips puckered. 

"Hey, as long as we’re all together, nothing can go wrong, right Virg?" Scott reached over and ruffled Alan’s hair. 

"Yeah, Scotty and Virg will make sure we’re okay, won’t you!" Gordon was on the bed behind Scott using his shoulders to jump higher on the bed. 

"John? Something on your mind?" 

Alan followed his eldest brother’s gaze. John hadn’t said anything and had a slight frown on his face. 

"Same as you, I imagine. However, it’s hard to make any theories at the moment about what will happen. We’ll just have to play along and see." 

Alan didn’t quite understand what John had meant, but Virgil wasn’t crying anymore and they were all telling him it would be okay, so he believed it. They sat there for a second in silence before Gordon brought their attention back to what they had been doing before all of this had happened and ran from the room ready to jump right back into the pool. 

—

That summer went by fast for the brothers. They spent as much time as they could exploring their new home, finding all the caves and tunnels that weren’t blocked off by their father, going down to the beach, and hiking just about everywhere. 

It didn’t take long for John to find the perfect stargazing spot and Alan would often follow him up after an active day to enjoy the peace of space above them and listen to his brother explain things to him. 

Their father would join them for breakfast and dinner during the week, and play with them on the weekends. Otherwise he would hide himself away in the mountain with some other man—he had introduced him when they had first arrived, but Alan wasn’t so sure about him and they rarely saw him so he could never remember his name. Still, it was better than what he had done in the past and he would usually tuck them in—or in his and John’s case, come find them and carry Alan back to his room and tuck him in. 

August came, though, and things quickly started to changed. Alan had seen his brothers talking to their father various times throughout the summer—Gordon had been mad at something first but then quickly changed his mind. From then on all he talked about was swimming. 

Then one day he woke to find all his brothers packing their bags. Confused he went to Scott’s room. "Where’re we going?" 

Scott looked up his eyes widened a bit before a small smile spread across his face. "We’re going to school." 

"Me too, right?" Alan climbed up onto the bed and looked into the bag his brother was packing. 

"No, I"m afraid you’re still too little." Scott pushed some more clothes into the bag. 

"You’ll be home for dinner?" Alan looked up at his brother, the smile had disappeared. "We can eat ice cream and swim again!" 

"Sorry, Allie, we won’t be home until October." 

"When’s that?" 

"In about two months. It’ll be our fall break." 

"But that's spring! Remember, We have two springs and two summers this year!" 

Scott couldn’t help but laugh a little. "That’s right, but we’re going back to the States. It’s going to be fall there soon." 

Alan scrunched his brow even more. "That’s far." 

Scott sighed and sat down next to him, laying an arm around him and pulling him in tight. "Yeah, it is." 

Alan shook his head and pulled away from Scott. He reached into his bag and started to pull a few things out. "No! You hafta stay!" 

"Alan, stop it." Scott stood and pulled him away from the bag, a pair of his underwear still in his hand. 

Alan immediately wrapped his arms and legs around Scott and buried his face in the crook of his neck. "Stay." There was a sniff and he clung a little tighter to Scott. 

"I can’t. But this is only temporary. We’ll be home a bunch of times, just not all the time." 

"I don’t wanna be alone."

"You’ll have Grandma and Dad, and there’s so much to do on this island you won’t even know what to do with yourself." 

Alan held on tighter and sniffed a little.

Scott sighed and held on just that much tighter. "We will be back. I promise. Not just for fall break, but Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring Break and then next summer. We’re not leaving for good, and you can even call whenever you want and talk. okay?" 

Alan didn’t answer him, but continued to cling to him. 

"There you are." 

Alan clung even tighter when he heard his grandma’s voice. He could feel Scott turn to look at her. 

"He doesn’t want us to go." A sigh escaped him and Alan tightened his grip. "Hey, squirt, any tighter and I’m not going to be able to breath." 

"He’s not the only one. Gordon’s gone off and is hiding. Your father is looking for him now." 

"I thought he was excited to go?" 

"He was, but I guess it hit him that he’s not going to the same school as the rest of you." Their grandma sighed.

Alan felt Scott sigh again. "Grandma, could you take him? Allie, go to Grandma, please." 

Alan just shook his head. 

"Come on, kid. How about we go get some ice cream. We’ve still got your favorite down in the freezer." 

Alan shook his head again. He didn’t want to let go, he didn’t care about ice cream or anything else. 

"Alan." 

Alan was crying again, the same big tears he cried when they left their home just a few months prior, but these tears hurt more. His brothers were leaving him. Even after they had promised to always be there, they were leaving. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but he was suddenly in his grandma’s arms so he latched onto her, Scott’s underwear still clutched in his hand. 

"I’m going to need these." 

Alan didn’t open his eyes, his face buried now in his grandma’s neck, but he could feel Scott tug on his shorts. Alan tightened his grip on them for a moment and then let go. Scott ruffled his hair a little, then kissed him on the head. 

His grandma took him from Scott’s room and down to the lounge occasionally patting him on the back and mumbling that things would be okay. 

She sat down with him on one of the couches, still patting him on the back. It took him some time to settle down, but he clung to his grandma even when he had stopped crying. 

It was there, curled up with his grandma that they heard the plane take off with his brothers.

It was a hard adjustment for the youngest not having his brothers around. The first couple of weeks the young boy was listless, not wanting to do anything.

"Alan, why don’t you go with Grandma down to the beach or something?" His father was sitting at his desk doing some work, but seemed distracted by his youngest. 

Alan was laying on the floor in the middle of the lounge. He hummed at his father’s suggestion as he slowly brought his knees up under him causing his rear to stick up into the air. Then just as slowly he slid his torso across the floor like an inch worm until he was once again flat on the floor. 

His father sighed. "This is just going to make the wait worse. You need to keep yourself busy." 

"No fun without Scott and 'em." Another slide like an inch worm.

There was a sigh and the rumble of his father’s chair rolling across the floor. "That’s it. No more sulking. I guess I was wrong in thinking you’d be able to entertain yourself—of course you’ve never had to before." His father sighed again. "Follow me." 

Alan looked over his shoulder at his father who was walking away from him. Curious he jumped to his feet and followed. 

His father led him outside and away from the house. It was a familiar area that he and Gordon often went to and played. There was a rock wall that was the border that they weren’t allowed past without someone older with them. That was where his father stopped. 

"I want you to get up there." His father pointed to the grassy ledge just above his head. 

Alan looked up at the ledge and then at his father. He tilted his head and then turned to head for the slope that they usually took to get up there. 

His father laughed. "Come back over here." 

"But—" Alan started to argue but his father just shook his head. 

"I didn’t explain myself well enough. I want you to climb the wall." 

Alan looked at his father and then back at the rocks before him. Gordon had climbed the wall multiple times, but Alan had been too nervous to try himself. 

"Don’t worry, I’m right here. I won’t let you fall." 

Alan scrunched his brows and nodded. He stepped forward and grabbed one of the rocks with his hand. 

"Good, now find a place to put your foot." His father nodded as he did so. 

He was now clinging to the wall but unsure of what to do next. 

"Now you need to go up. Is there a rock you can reach with one of your hands?" 

Alan looked around but shook his head. "I’m too short." 

"Well, is there a rock higher up you could put your foot on?" 

Alan frowned a bit as he looked down, sticking his but out as he did. He lifted his foot up and put it on a higher rock but was unable to keep his hold on the wall and fell backwards with a screech. 

But his father was there and caught him. "See, I told you I wouldn’t let you fall." 

Alan smiled at his father. "I wanna try again." 

"Good. This time don’t stick your butt out like that. You need to keep your whole body close to the wall, okay." 

"Right." Alan took a leap at the wall this time, clinging to it for a moment before lifting his leg to the higher rock. Once there he pulled himself up so he could reach with his hands places that were higher up. 

"Don’t try and grab things too big right now, your hands are still too small for that. Once they’re bigger and stronger then you can try it." 

Alan nodded and bit his lip as he concentrated. He fell two more times, but eventually made it up the small wall. 

"I did it!" He jumped and cheered above his dad’s head. 

"Alright, alright. Come on back down." 

Alan ran down the slope and back to his father who had walked a few paces down the wall. This part of the wall was almost twice as high, his father couldn’t even touch the ledge anymore. 

"What do you think, want to try it here?" 

"Yes!" Alan cheered and jumped at the wall, missing a hold at first but immediately trying again. 

They continued working the rest of the day, his father bringing him back to the house asleep in his arms.

"It’s good to see him worn out. I’ve been worried about him. I knew he’d miss his brothers but—" 

"Ah, I know. I won’t be able to do this everyday, though." 

"What should we do?" 

Jeff readjusted his son in his arms holding him tight as he headed for the elevator. "I don’t know. I’ll think about it tonight. Hopefully I can think of something by tomorrow." 

"I hope so too. Otherwise you might have to think about bringing Virgil home." 

"Virgil? Why not Gordon? I figured he’d be the first choice." 

"I talked to him and his teachers today. Well, it’d be more truthful to say I said hi to him today. He was too excited to get into the pool. He really likes it there and his teachers say he’s doing really good. I don’t think pulling him out now would be a good idea." 

"And what about Virgil?" 

"Both him and Scott are worried about Alan. Scott can’t leave, you know how dedicated he is, but Virgil said he’d be willing to come home and do home school." 

Jeff sighed as he laid Alan down in his bed and covered him up. "I’d rather not do that either." 

"We need to figure something out." 

"Let me think on it." 

Alan rolled over in his bed and clung to his alien plush as the lights were turned off. 

His father did start spending more time with Alan, though it wasn’t everyday. But he was able to get Alan out of his little funk and spending more time in the pool, reading, or even playing games with his grandma. 

In the end, none of his brothers were brought home, but Alan still missed them and would call them often, mostly just before he went to bed. It took a few weeks, but he eventually learned their schedule and knew when their morning break was and took full advantage of that. 

"Hey, Allie. Shouldn’t you be in bed?" 

Alan couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Scott’s hologram. "I am. I even have my PJs on already." 

"That’s good. Have you talked to John recently?" 

"I talked to him yesterday. He told me more about the stars." 

"Why am I not surprised. So what kind of trouble did you get into today?" 

Alan’s eyes lit up at the question, he’d been waiting all day to tell him. "Dad took me climbing again! I climbed a wall that was twice Dad’s size!! And I only fell twice!" 

Scott laughed. "That sounds fun. Did Dad catch you?" 

"Nope, we were using a rope! He had his friend make me a belt that fit!" 

"The harness?" 

"Yea, that!" 

"I see. Sounds like you’ll be climbing all over the island in no time." 

"Nah, Dad won’t let me near the big walls yet." 

"I’m glad to hear that. You’re not doing any climbing without Dad are you?" 

"Nope. I promised. I’ve been trying to swim faster or run faster when he can’t play." 

"Sounds like you’re keeping yourself busy." Scott chuckled a little. 

The connection fell silent for a moment as Alan watched his brother. "When are you coming home?" 

"You ask that every time, squirt." 

"I miss you." 

"I miss you too." 

"Then why did you go?" 

There was a small chuckle and then a sigh. "I’m surprised it took you this long to ask that." 

"Grandma said I shouldn’t bother you about it. That it was hard for you to leave." 

"It was very hard, but I want to be a pilot like Dad, you know that right?" 

"Yeah, you want to fly those fast planes!" Alan made a vroom as he waved his hand through the air like it was a plane. 

"Yeah, just like that." Scott smiled big for a moment, but it softened a little as he continued. "But I’ve got to be sure I take the right classes and learn the right stuff to do that. There is this school I want to go to when I’m older and it’s really hard to get into so I have to start studying really hard now if I want to go." 

"But you’re already smart. I bet you could get in now!" 

"I’m glad you think that, but I’ve still got a lot to learn." 

"Oh." Alan laid his head down on his pillow. "What about Virgil?" 

"You’ll have to ask him about that. He’s right here, do you want to talk to him?" 

Alan nodded his head. Scott disappeared for a moment and Alan worried that the connection had been closed but then Virgil’s head appeared and Alan couldn’t help but smile. 

"Hey, Allie. I hear you’re asking some hard questions today." 

Alan shrugged a little. "I just wanna know why you left." 

Virgil’s smile faded away a little as he sighed. He looked to his left and right a moment before leaning in a little. "Someone had to come and make sure Scott was okay, you know. I couldn’t just let him go off on his own, do you know how miserable he would have been without one of us?" 

Alan smiled a little at that, but it didn’t last long. "I miss you guys though." 

"I know. I miss you all too." 

"You’re not having too much fun without us are you?" 

Virgil let out a much louder chuckle at that. "Oh, I’m sure you’re having way more fun with Dad than we are. We have class every day and have to study when we’re done too." 

"We study every day too!" Alan leaned up on his elbow a bit. "Grandma makes me practice reading and counting. Grandma says she’s gonna make me start doing some math next week." Alan scrunched his nose up a little. 

"Aw, I think you’ll like math. You’ll need it if you want to fly like the rest of us." 

"Hmm, I guess I can give it a try." Alan laid back down again, blinking a little, his eyelids feeling a bit heavy. 

"I think it’s time you got to bed." 

"I’m not tired." Alan yawned and rubbed at his eyes. 

"How about if I sing you a song?" 

Alan nodded and yawned again. It was the song Virgil usually sang for him, and he thought that maybe their mother had sang it as well, but he was afraid to ask them about it cause it always made them sad. 

It didn’t take long for Alan to doze off and he just barely heard his brothers say night before he was asleep.


	4. Alan's Darkest Days: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alan's gone off to school and is trying his best to make his family proud, but one day his world came crashing down.

The Roosevelt Hotel was by far the best hotel in New York City. It was over a hundred and thirty years old and had maintained it’s four diamond status for much of that time. It was a place that those with money would stay, and those without would dream about. 

But on this weekend it was filled with elementary and intermediate school students. Nine to twelve year olds who were some of the smartest in the country. They had flown in from all over the US, bussed there from the airport and would stay within the confines of the hotel for their entire stay. 

That wasn’t a problem for them though. Most of these kids had already been to New York at least once. There were even a few that had complained about having to stay at the hotel when their parents lived nearby. 

For Alan Tracy, it was his fifth trip to the city. Tracy Industries had an office there and his father had brought him a few times—sometimes alone and sometimes with a brother or two or four. So it didn’t bother him that they could only see the city from their windows. They were there for a specific reason and they needed to concentrate on that. 

After Alan had turned five he was sent off to a boarding school just like his brothers. It had been the same academy that Virgil and Scott had started in, though they had only been in the middle school building before moving to other more specialized schools. 

At first Alan was a little sad. He missed being on the island and with his father all the time. But he soon made friends and came to enjoy school as well, though he always looked forward to breaks and trips back to the island. 

The summer before third grade that he and Gordon were finally brought in on their father’s secret. Scott was staying on the island to finish up school and train to help in the fairly new organization. Virgil was doing the same. Alan knew that he needed to work hard if he was going to join them in the fun so school became a priority. He knew he needed to be better than his brothers. Not to replace them, but to carve a place for himself within their ranks. 

Alan was now in fifth grade and on his school’s academic team and while it wasn’t as big of a deal as it would be once he got to high school, it was still a very exclusive team and those on it were hand picked and usually the best in the grade. So when he was asked to join, he didn’t hesitate. 

His dad and brothers were excited for him, it would be the first team that he had joined since being in school. He wanted to make sure to make them all proud. 

The team was strict, but Alan didn’t mind. Each member was supposed to be versed in all subjects but they also each had a specialty—for Alan it was Science. They practiced three times a week after their last class for almost three hours before going straight to dinner. Then they were expected to go straight to their rooms and do their homework for their classes. 

The schedule meant that Alan couldn’t hang out with his friends as much, but he didn’t mind—he loved the challenge. 

They had competed with other schools along the west coast before making it to New York. This often cost them to lose their weekends and parts of their vacations. However that didn’t stop Alan from calling his brothers and asking them for help when he needed it. 

"John! You awake?" Alan was laying on the floor on the far side of the hotel room, his roommate already asleep in the other bed. 

"Alan, what are you still doing up?" John’s hologram floated before him the zero-g’s from Thunderbird Five made him look like he was swimming and Alan giggled a little at the thought.

"I’m at Nationals, remember? I’m studying." 

"Yes, I remember—not sure how I could forget with how often you’ve reminded me." John chuckled and shook his head a little. "But it’s two o’clock in the morning there. You should be asleep." 

"You’re still up." 

"And I go by Tracy Standard Time which means I’m in which timezone?" 

Alan sighed a little. "UTC+12." 

"And what timezone are you in?" 

"I’m in Eastern Standard Time which is UTC-5." 

"So, what time is it for me then?" 

"Alan scrunched up his nose a little as he thought. "That’s an eighteen hour difference. So, Eight at night." 

"Right. So, why are you still awake?" 

"Cause I can’t sleep. I’m still struggling with that one theory you helped me with over Christmas and the competition is first thing in the morning!" 

"You were doing fine with it then." 

"But it doesn’t make sense!" Alan hissed trying not to wake his roommate. 

John couldn’t help but smile at his little brother. "I know it doesn’t. I mean, technically it’s not right. But that is the answer that was provided to you by the competition’s organizing body and is still considered the most main stream explanation." 

"But, if it’s not right, why are they using it?" 

John ran a hand through his hair, still smiling. "It’s only recently—like in the past year— that a couple of researchers published a paper with a new theory that proved that theory wrong. It’s going to take time before this new theory becomes more accepted and makes its way into the educational system." 

"That’s not right. We shouldn’t be taught things that aren’t correct." 

"I’m sure by the time you hit high school, things will have changed. You’ll just have to accept it and deal with it for now. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but if you want to win, I’m sure they’ll only take that old idea as a correct answer." 

Alan frowned.

"Now go to bed." 

"One last question." 

"Yes?" 

"Who published the paper and where can I find it." 

John eyed his brother. "I’ll send it to you tomorrow after your competition." 

"How about their names? You can give me that at least, can’t you?" 

John took in a deep breath and straightened up a little. "On one condition." 

"Which is?" Alan was smiling again. He knew he could get John to play along if he bugged him enough. 

"You’ll keep this comm signal open and go right to bed." 

"What, so you can spy on me?" 

"Pretty much." John shrugged. "Is it a deal?" 

Alan’s smile was only half gone. He’d have a little bit of time in the morning to look the scientists up. "Alright, it’s a deal." 

"Maril Davis and Sachiko Kawamoto. Now go to bed." 

Alan saluted his brother before he pushed himself up off the floor and crawled into the bed. 

—

"Dad! Did you see it!! You watched it right!?" Alan was on the flight home, having had no time to call his father after the competition. They had left the hotel almost immediately so that they could make it back to the school before it got too late. It was only a few hours flight so Alan had called his dad as soon as they had reached altitude. 

Jeff smiled at his youngest from his usual seat at his desk in the lounge. "Alan, filter your audio. I can hear the plane as if it was in the room with me." 

"Wha? Oh—right, umm…" Alan bent his head down for a moment and the roar of the plane was suddenly brought down to a whisper. "How’s that?" 

"Much better." Jeff laughed at his sons enthusiasm. "And yes, I did watch it. You did a great job, especially with demanding that they were wrong on that last one. That was a big chance you took." 

"I just couldn’t stand it! John told me about the new research and I just couldn’t give an answer I knew was wrong!" 

"Oh? You just took John’s opinion without double checking it?" 

"Well, he wouldn’t give me the paper last night—something about needing sleep—like he’s one to talk—" Alan rolled his eyes and laughed a little. "But he did give me the researchers’ names so I looked it up before the contest began. I wasn’t able to read it all, but I did skim through it. It looked pretty sound from what I could tell, so I went with it. I mean, I didn’t understand a lot of what they were saying, but I trust John too. He wouldn’t give me false information, ya know!" 

"Yes, I know." Jeff chuckled as well and nodded, before waving over the figure that had just appeared at the top of the stairs from the kitchen. 

"Hey, squirt." 

"Scott!!" Alan’s eyes got bigger and his smile wider. "Did you watch it too?" 

"Sure did. Couldn’t be prouder of you. You’ll have to call back later to catch Virgil, he’s on a quick rescue in the South Atlantic." 

"Aww." Alan pouted a bit. "We have to go to our rooms right when we get back. They’re going to serve us dinner on the plane." 

"Well, then give him a call tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll want to congratulate you too." 

Alan nodded. "So, anything exciting going on?" 

His father reached up and scratched at his chin a little. "Well, I had to take Three up and help one of those new space freighters. They had a gas leak and their orbit was deteriorating." 

"OH! OH! Did you have to use Three’s arms? Was it a close call? Did John have to help?" 

"Whoa! Slow down there. All I did was a cold weld where it was leaking and gave it enough fuel to get where it needed to. It was pretty boring really." Jeff couldn’t help but smile at his son’s enthusiasm about space.

"That’s still cool though! When do I get to go up with you? Or even hang out with John! I’m sure he’d love to have me stay up in Five with him one weekend!" 

Jeff laughed at this, it was a questions his youngest asked every time they talked. "After you finish middle school. You should be well on your way to getting your flight hours in by then." 

"Yeah, squirt. Dad’s handed off your flight lessons to Virgil and me. So this summer when you come home you’re going to be spending a lot of time with us up in the skies." 

Alan’s smile faded a little and his head drooped. 

"Hey, what’s wrong? I thought you’d be excited?" 

"I-I am—I just, I like flying with Dad." 

Jeff laughed. "Don’t worry. I’m having them take care of your flying, so that I can spend time with you doing something else." 

Alan’s eyes widened and he perked up. "Wha—" 

"Hold on." Jeff held up a hand to stop his youngest. "I’m not going to say what it is yet. You’ll just have to wait to find out." 

"Ah man!" Alan pouted again. "That’s going to make the semester go so slow!" 

"Yeah, and now you don’t have your academic team to take up your time either." Scott chuckled leaning on the desk next to their father. 

Alan’s jaw dropped. "Aw man, why did you have to remind me?" 

His father and brother laughed at his reaction. "Don’t worry squirt. It’ll be here before you know it." 

"Alan, it’s time to get off and have dinner." A figure had walked up behind Alan and tapped him on the shoulder. 

"Alright, Mr. Anderson." Alan turned back to his father and brother. "Guess I gotta go." 

"Hey, we’ll see you during Spring Break in about a month, right?" 

"Wouldn’t miss it for the world! And don’t think I won’t be bugging you about summer!" Alan gave them his biggest smile before he turned the link off. 

—

Alan made his way into his room and threw his bag onto his bed before he flopped down onto the floor in his half of the room. "Hey, Ade." 

"Hey, how did it go?" Ade looked up from the work on his desk and glanced over at Alan.

"We won!" Alan looked up and flashed a smile at him. "I answered the winning question." 

"But of course you did." Ade rolled his eyes as he looked back down at his work. 

Alan stuck his tongue out for a moment. "Anything exciting happen while we were gone?" 

"Not really. We just watched some documentaries in Social Studies. Though Mr. Anderson left us double workbook pages in Math to keep us busy. We’re supposed to have it done by Monday." He waved the stack of papers he was working on for emphasis. 

"Sorry." Alan shrugged. "If it helps, Señora Bailey only gave us a one day extension on the Spanish video." 

"Eh, you’ll get it done by Monday anyways." He shrugged. "I’ll just have to study over the summer and get on the team kicking your ass out so I can get special treatment." 

"Ha! Good luck with that!" 

"Hey, if you’re playing your game, remember to use your headphones." 

"Already ahead of you." Alan popped in the second earbud as he started up his console. 

—

"Alan, you’re going to be late, again!" 

"Just leave him be. If he’s late it’s his fault." 

"Alan!" 

"Uhhn…" Alan rolled over onto his back and cracked an eye open. Marcel, his best friend, was standing over him his hands on his hips. 

"Wake up!" 

"Too early—" Alan went to roll back over, but a hand stopped him. 

"We only have ten minutes till class starts!" 

"Wha?" Alan’s eyes finally popped open. "Why didn’t you wake me earlier?" 

"I have been trying, and your alarm’s been going off for the past hour." Marcel stood and crossed his arms glaring at the empty side of the room. "I’m surprised he doesn’t complain more than he already does." 

Alan yawned and pulled himself up off the floor, stretching a bit. "Only cause it helps wake him up as well." He turned to his bed where everything seemed to be piled and started picking through it for his uniform. "Go on, I’ll be there in a sec." 

"You do remember that one more tardy and you’ll get a detention and your Dad’s going to be called." 

Alan flashed his friend a smile. "Don’t worry, just go." 

Alan got himself dressed and grabbed his bag. He made it to class just as the bell chimed its final ring. 

"Well, Mr. Tracy. Made it by the skin of your teeth I see." His teacher shook his head. "Get to your seat so we can get started." 

Alan didn’t say anything but sat down and rubbed at his eyes.

He woke up more by second period, and by third he was joking and laughing with his friends in class—which he got scolded at least once a day for.

"Hey, Alan!" Marcel was sitting across from him in the cafeteria as they ate their lunch. "Did you get the Spanish video done?" 

"Yeah, I did it last night." Lunch was grilled fish with vegetables. Not the best they served but it was better than having to endure his grandmother’s meals. "It’s not hard, just read the script and post it." 

"That’s assuming the script is written." Marcel rolled his eyes. "I don’t have a brother that is fluent in three languages to help." 

"I only had John proof read it. I wrote it all myself, and he didn’t tell me how to fix it just what was wrong with it." Alan smiled. "If you want I can help you with it? I don’t have my academic team practice anymore." 

Marcel eyed him for a moment and then nodded. "You know, thanks to that team my grades have gone down." 

Alan laughed at that. "Yeah, I need you to make sure I get up of a morning, and you need me to make sure you turn stuff in." 

His friend laughed. "Yeah, not sure what we’re going to do when you go off to that specialized middle school." 

"Eh, you’ll just find another friend. Same as me. And we’ll always have Castle Quest." 

Marcel smiled back before reaching over to steal a bite of Alan’s dessert. Alan grabbed at Marcel’s plate and before they could go any farther one of the teachers had to come over to quiet them down. 

They were still laughing when they finally left and made their way outside. It was still quite cold out and most of the students had decided to enjoy their break inside, but Alan and his friends didn’t mind—they usually spent their time running and working up a sweat anyways. 

They made their way across the arboretum to the clump of trees at the far side. It was a small wood with a lot of secret spots—the perfect place for a game of hide and seek. They played through the rest of their lunch break before the bell called them back to the building, their cheeks red with cold.

Spanish was the next class of the day. It was a normal class, Alan turned in his video and they practiced some grammar. This was followed by Science and then Math was the last class of the day. 

Most of Math was spent trying to finish the packet they had received the previous week, those that had been gone had received a smaller worksheet to keep them busy in the meantime. 

Alan didn’t mind. He liked working on math problems, they were like a puzzle. He was already on the second page when the teacher came around the room. 

"Alan, must you always change the word problems so they involve your father and brothers?" Mr. Anderson was looking down at him, an eye brow raised. 

"What does it matter? I still get the answers right." 

His teacher sighed a little, but kept his stern frown. "This is the exact reason you get points off on your test. You need to answer the questions as they are, not all—" 

A knock on the door interrupted the teacher. Everyone in the room turned to see who was there. 

"Mr. Anderson, sorry to intrude, but could I see Mr. Tracy please." 

Mr. Anderson clenched his jaw a little. "Of course, Dr. Ahaus." 

Alan glanced from his teacher to the principle. It was highly unusual for him to come and collect a student himself. Discipline was handled by the Dean of Students, and even they didn’t come looking for someone unless it was something really bad. 

"Go on, we’ll finish this discussion later." 

Alan thinned his lips at that. He wasn’t really liking the direction the conversation was going in the first place, especially since his teacher hadn’t lowered his voice any and the entire class was listening in. Hoping his teacher would forget about what he was saying, Alan stood and made his way toward the door.

"You’ll need your things." The principle waved a hand to the side of the room where the students kept their bags during the day. 

Alan frowned. They lived on campus, it wasn’t like he was going to be sent home or something. And they rarely took kids out of class for anything short of an emergency. Even the recognition for the Academic Team was going to be held the next day during dinner. 

Alan frowned as he took a detour and grabbed his bag. He let it hang next to him, dragging a little on the floor as he made his way out of the room—the eyes of everyone in the class following him. 

The principle gestured for him to follow and started down the hall. 

"What’s going on?" Alan took a few steps but then stopped. 

"We need to discuss something in private." The principle backtracked and put a hand behind him to encourage him to start moving again. 

"Am I in trouble? I haven’t done anything wrong." Alan stood his ground. Something wasn’t right. Bells were ringing in his head as loud as the klaxon on the island. 

"No, you’re not in trouble. Please, this is not the place to discuss this." 

Alan shook the man’s hand from his shoulder. "Tell me then. Why did you pull me out of class? Kids only get pulled if something is wrong!" 

The principle let out a sigh and squatted down so that he was more on Alan’s level. "This really isn’t the place Alan." 

More alarm bells, the principle never called anyone by their first name, ever. "What is going on?" 

Another sigh, "There’s been an accident—" 

Alan grew stiff. It was possible. What his father and brothers did was dangerous. He shook the feeling off and forced out a smile. "But they’re okay right? I mean, Brains designs stuff to be super safe. So, they what, got a broken bone or something? It was probably Scott wasn’t it. He was telling me how Brains was going to design him a wing suit." He forced out a laugh but it froze in the air as the principle’s expression seemed to grow even more grim. 

"Alan, come to the office and I’ll—" 

"No! Just tell me!" It came out quite a bit louder than he had planed and the principle rocked back on his heels a little. 

"We don’t want to interrupt the classes—" 

"Then just tell me! One of my stupid brothers got into a stupid accident and they’re what, in the hospital? They’ll be fine! Like I said Brains equipment is super safe! It’s all fine!" Alan was finding it harder to keep the forced smile on his lips, his laugh sounding a bit choked. 

The principle sighed yet again and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them. "It’s not your brothers. It’s—It’s your father. There was an accident a couple days ago and I’m afraid he didn’t make it." 

A cold chill ran through his body. His hand tightened around the strap of his bag. "No. Why wasn’t I told sooner?!" 

"They were hoping to find him, but—" The principle shook his head. "I’m sorry Alan. Your brother—Scott will be here tomorrow to collect you." 

"No." 

The principle stood and moved to guide Alan down the hall, but he evaded the hand. "No! You’re lying! He’s not—He can’t be!" Alan was yelling as loud as he could, as if the volume could make it even more of an impossibility. 

"Alan—" 

"No!" He just kept repeating it. Louder and louder. Teachers in the rooms around them were starting to poke their heads out the doors to see what the trouble was. 

"Alan, please come down to the office with me." 

"No!" Alan threw his bag at the principle and ran. 

He ran from the building and into the arboretum. He ran across the sleek manicured lawn jumped over the flowerbeds and into the small woods on the far side—the same he and his friends had played in earlier that day. 

There was this one group of trees on the far side of the grove that Alan aimed for. The parent tree had fallen a long time ago and the stump rotted out, but then new sprouts sprung up around it and became huge trees themselves. If you knew just were to go you could hide in that old stump and unless you knew about it, it was impossible to find. 

That was what Alan was hoping for. He was sure he was the only one that knew about it. No one had ever found him while hiding there and as far as he knew no one else had ever used it either. 

He would be safe there and as long as he was there, no one could tell him what he knew couldn’t be true; There was nothing on this Earth or off of it that could hurt his dad. Nothing.

Alan slipped into the stump and pulled his knees to his chest burying his face in them. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he gulped the air like he was a fish out of water. 

He could hear Dr. Ahaus call his name, but just pulled himself tighter into a ball and stayed as quiet as he could. 

Time passed and he could hear more people start calling out his name. First other teachers, then some of his friends. He could see shadows pass above him, someone close to finding him but never looking in just the right place. Eventually his friends were sent to their dinner. A few returned a bit later and tried calling for him again, but he stayed quiet. 

It started to get dark before Alan’s tears had dried up. His legs were getting stiff, but he didn’t want to move. He was safe there, the realities of the outside world unable to get to him. 

As the light disappeared they eventually stopped calling his name, but he started to see lights flash around above him. They were still looking for him, but he still didn’t want to leave the safety of the trunk. 

His teeth started to chatter as the temperature dropped so he clenched his jaw to keep them quiet and wrapped his arms tighter around his legs. He just told himself that the cold didn’t matter. Nothing did. 

He was tired though, and he eventually fell asleep with no memory of when or how long he’d been out there. 

He was pulled out of his sleep by a light. Bright and artificial, it shone at the tree above him. There was also the hum of a laser cutter.

He cracked his eyes open and it felt like his lashes had frozen onto his cheeks. He was so cold and yet he wasn’t shivering. Part of him knew that was bad, but a larger part didn’t care—this was all just a bad dream anyways.

The wood in front of him cracked and the bright light flooded into the stump. He blinked a few times, but everything was shadowed and a little blurry.  
A figure stepped into the light and Alan looked up at it. "Dad?" His voice cracked, his throat sore from all the crying. 

There was a pause, a cough and a clearing of a throat. "I’m sorry, Allie." 

Hands reached out and pulled him up out of the stump and then picked him up and held him to their chest. A blanket was laid over him and he closed his eyes and drifted off again. He had been right, it had only been a dream. His dad had came and saved him. 

—

It was warm. That was the first thing that came to Alan’s mind. He was comfortable and warm. He stretched his arms out above his head and stretched his toes as far as he could. 

"Finally awake?" 

Alan froze mid stretch. The voice sounded familiar, yet out of place. He pulled the blanket off from his face and blinked at the figure standing next to the bed dressed in IR blue. 

"Dad?" 

"Sorry, squirt. Just me." Scott sat down on the bed and patted Alan’s leg. 

Alan blinked at his brother. He didn’t look right. His eyes were bloodshot, and there were dark circles under them. 

"Scott? Are you okay?" 

Scott forced out a weak laugh. "About as good as I can be, but I should be asking you that. How are you doing?" 

Alan blinked a little, confused by the question. He frowned and sat up as a small bit of a memory made itself known. "Scott—" Alan clenched his hand on his blanket. "It was a dream right?" 

"What?" 

"Dr. Ahaus. He said—" He clenched his fists tighter. "Dad. He said Dad—" He found his throat clenching and he gasped a little. "It was a dream right?" 

Scotts brows drew together as he laid his hand on Alan’s. "I’m sorry, Allie." 

"No!" Alan scooted away from his brother, as far into the corner as he could, his knees once more to his chest and his face hidden in them. "No! I-It can’t be!" 

Scott sighed and crawled up to the head of the bed so he was next to his brother. "Alan, I-" He had to clear his throat, the tears once again coming to his own eyes. "I wish I could say it was a dream. I really do." He wrapped his arm around his brother and pulled him close. 

Alan leaned over and wrapped his arms around Scott, his face buried into his brother’s chest and cried. 

They sat there for a long time. The brothers clinging to each other. But there were things to do, and they couldn’t stay there all day. 

"Alright, Allie. We—" He paused and cleared his throat as he reached up and wiped at his eyes. "We need to get you home." 

Alan sniffed and looked up at his brother. He opened his mouth, about to say that he didn’t want to go home, but then he realized that he wanted nothing more than to be with his brothers so he closed it and nodded. 

"I went ahead and packed a few things—some clothes, your games—that kind of stuff. We have to swing by the office so I can officially sign you out, but then we can head home." 

Alan looked down at what he was wearing, and found he was still in his uniform from the day before. He scooted out of his bed and reached for the packed bag on the floor. 

As he got dressed he glanced around the room. It was markedly cleaner than usual, seemed Scott had kept himself busy while he had slept. He glanced over at the other side of the room, it was empty but that shouldn’t have been a surprise since it was late morning. 

Scott caught the glance. "They had your roommate sleep in a friends room. He came in earlier to grab a couple of things, didn’t seem to be the friendliest of boys though polite." 

Alan nodded and threw his uniform on his bed. He just stood there unsure of what to do. He really just wanted to curl up under the covers again, but then he also really wanted to see his brothers as well. 

"Come on." Scott stood and grabbed his bag, "Let’s get going." 

Scott opened the door and Alan walked through it. He felt like a zombie—except he wasn’t craving any brains—but very little seemed to register as they walked through the halls and into the school building. He hadn’t really paid attention to the time, but when they walked through the doors the bell had rung for lunch. Students had started to emerge from the rooms and froze when they saw him—whispers and looks made him feel like he was on display. 

Alan stayed just that much closer to his brother and kept his eyes down, he couldn’t look at anyone just then and he had to force himself not to reach up and grab his brother’s baldric like some kid. 

They walked into the office and were led straight into the principle’s office. 

Dr. Ahaus reached out and shook Scott’s hand. "I won’t keep you. I know you’ll be wanting to get home. I just want to apologize for last night. I should have made him come to the office—" 

Scott held up his hand and shook his head and Alan felt a punch to his gut—his dad had done the same thing the last time they had talked. 

"He probably would have run either way." 

"Well, I’m glad you were able to find him. I had a small conference this morning with his teachers. We are prepared to help you as much as we can. I know he won’t come back for a bit and his teachers have prepared a few packets he can work on while he’s home, when he’s ready of course." 

"Thank you. We appreciate it."

Suddenly Alan’s backpack was being held out to him. He blinked and took it letting it hang next to him—the straps dragging on the floor. 

Alan had heard the conversation though didn’t process it. Everything around him seemed like it was moving in slow motion and he had no strength to try and catch up or understand what was happening around him so he let his mind go blank and let the world move on without him.

"If you need anything, don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’ll do what we can to help." 

"Thank you again." Scott reached out and shook the principle’s hand once more.

He felt Scott’s hand on his back and looked up at the sad smile on his brother’s face before looking away quickly. He couldn’t cry here, not with everyone out in the halls. He bit his lip and allowed his mind to go blank again as he was led out of the office. 

There were still kids in the hall, but Alan paid them no mind. He kept his eyes on the floor and followed his brother’s blue boots. 

Those boots led him out to the football field where Thunderbird One had been parked. One of the school’s security guards was nearby to make sure the kids didn’t get close to it, and waved when they passed. 

Alan climbed the ladder into the bird’s belly and let Scott take his bag to stow it away before making his way to the jump seat that sat behind his brother’s chair. 

He climbed into the seat and pulled down buckled himself in. A moment later Scott appeared and pulled down the shoulder restraints and made sure he was secure before moving up to his own seat. 

Usually Alan would have been excited to ride in one of the Thunderbirds, but he barely registered the jet taking off. There was no whooping or laughing as they broke the sound barrier either. Alan just sat there with his hands on the shoulder restraints. His eyes were unfocused and the weight on his chest from the Gs was making it a little hard to breath—or maybe it was making him want to cry again, he wasn’t quite sure anymore. 

"Alan? You okay?" 

Alan blinked and his brother was in front of him—or rather above him. He took in a deep breath, the pressure no longer there. 

"Alan?" 

"I’m fine." It was barely a whisper as he lifted the shoulder restraints. He crawled out of the seat and climbed down to where his bags were stowed. Slowly he opened the hatch and pulled them free and laid them down on the platform that had been raised to carry him down. 

There was a hand on his shoulder just as he stepped onto the platform and he glanced up at Scott as the platform started to move. For a moment, his brother looked too much like his father and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying again. 

As soon as the platform had lowered them to the ground he grabbed his bags and took off toward the elevator that would take him to the house. 

He went straight up to his room and slammed the door behind him. He threw his bags on the bed and flopped down on the floor burying his head in a pillow and cried.


	5. Alan's Darkest Days: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alan's struggling to come to terms with his father's death, but his brothers are there to help.

Alan woke up some hours later. He pushed himself up and looked around, but was still in his room—the light coming through the door was quite a bit brighter than it had when he had arrived. Still he didn’t feel like going anywhere. He was still tired, and the nap he had already taken had done nothing but make him feel sick to his stomach. 

He reached over to his bed and pulled on his comforter. His bags he had thrown on the bed were pulled off with it, and it even knocked the light type that sat on the table next to his bed onto the floor. He didn’t care and just pulled harder on the comforter until he was able to cover himself up and dozed back into slumber.

"Gordon, where are you going?" 

"Scott said Alan was home." 

"Just let him be for now."

"But—"

"Let him be Gordon. He needs some time to process this. He’ll come down when he’s ready." 

"Alright." 

Alan had frozen when he had heard his brothers’ voices. He wanted nothing more than to be with them, but at the same time he didn’t want to leave his room and the cocoon he had himself wrapped in. 

He pulled the blankets tighter around himself and closed his eyes, willing himself to go back to sleep. He just wasn’t ready to face anything yet. 

When he woke up again his door was dark, no light making its way into the room. Alan’s stomach started to growl but Alan just squeezed it and rolled over. If he left his room there was a possibility he’d run into one of his brothers and if that happened he’d have to acknowledge what had happened. 

He tossed and turned for awhile—his stomach not letting him forget that he was hungry—but eventually it settled and he fell back into the nothingness of sleep. 

"Alan." 

A hand was on his shoulder shaking him, but Alan just groaned and pulled the blanket tighter around him. 

"Alan, you need to wake up." 

"No." He knew it was Scott that was bothering him and he knew he should probably do as he was told, but he just wasn’t ready, not yet. 

His brother sighed. "You need to eat something. You probably haven’t eaten anything the past two days. Come down and have lunch with us at least."

"'m not hungry."

"I find that hard to believe." 

Alan just groaned in response. 

"I’m not leaving till you come and eat something." 

Alan let out a sigh and flipped the comforter off of himself. "If I eat will you leave me alone?" 

Scott looked his brother up and down. "It looks like you could do with a shower as well—"

Alan groaned and moved to curl up in his comforter again.

"Alright. At least we’d be getting you out of here for a bit. But you really need to come out and be with the rest of us. It’s not helping you to be in here by yourself." 

"I don’t want to be around the others." 

Scott ignored him and grabbed Alan’s arm just under the armpit. "Come on. You need something to eat." 

Alan let himself be pulled to his feet and led from his room. The light hurt his eyes but he tried not to show it as he followed his brother down the stairs and into the kitchen where he found the rest of his brothers at the table. 

"Allie!" Gordon jumped out of his seat, ran over to his brother and picked him up. The pre-teen spun his brother around in a big hug—which was something since Alan was only an inch or so shorter than his brother. 

Usually this action brought laughter from the youngest, but that day absolutely nothing came out of his mouth. 

Gordon stopped spinning him and Alan just remained limp in his arms so Gordon gave him an extra tight hug. "Come on, let’s get you some lunch." 

Alan nodded and let himself be led over to the table and sat next to Scott. A sandwich was laid down in front of him but he found himself just staring at it.

"Come on Alan, eat up. You’ve got to be hungry." Scott reached over and squeezed his shoulder. 

Alan stiffened at the gesture—one his father did often—and had to bite his lip to keep the tears at bay, he didn’t want to think about it. 

After a few moments he reached out and picked up the sandwich and took a bite, and then another one. The sandwich disappeared in no time. 

"There, don’t you feel better?" 

Alan shrugged a little. True, his stomach wasn’t growling like it had been, but at the same time all he wanted was to go back to his room. 

"Why don’t you and Gordon go for a swim?" Virgil swung his arm out toward the pool for emphasis. 

"Yeah, that’s a good idea! Come on Alan! Let’s go!" Gordon smiled across the table at Alan as he slapped the table with his hand. 

Alan flinched a couple of times—those gestures too were ones his father had used often. "I’m going back to my room." 

He slid off his seat and started toward the stairs. It wasn’t their fault. They probably didn’t realize they looked like that, but it just meant that he needed to be back in his room where he could just sleep and forget about everything. 

He struggled to keep himself from crying. Images of his father seemed to pop up everywhere he looked. He just needed to make it to his room and he’d be okay.

"Alan?" 

Alan froze and looked into the lounge. His grandma was sitting at their father’s desk. But even her, the way she said his name—

He bolted, ran as fast as he could to his room and slammed the door. He flopped onto the floor curled up into the blanket, and once again cried. 

He wasn’t sure how long it was before someone made their way into his room. He didn’t care, and just kept his face down in his arms. The tears had dried up, but that last venture out just make it even more clear he didn’t want to leave his room.

He could hear them walk across the room and sit down on the bed. 

It was quiet, though he could hear whoever it was shift on the bed, and cough a little. He assumed it was Virgil. Virgil was usually the one that came when someone was crying. 

He turned his head a little and peeked out of the corner of his elbow, but it wasn’t Virgil’s boots that he saw at the base of his bed they were Scott’s shoes. 

He buried his head again. "I wanna be alone." 

"I know you do, Allie, but I think it would be best if you stayed with us. Being with people is better in these situations." 

"How would you know?" 

"Well, I was just a few years older than you are now when Mom died." 

Alan froze, he had completely forgotten about their mom. About his brother’s having had gone through this once already. He had too, technically, though he didn’t remember anything about it.

Scott took in a deep breath and let it out. "Virgil was a year older, and John a year younger. Gordon was I think six, so quite a bit younger." 

Alan pushed himself up into a sitting position. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—" 

A rustle of fabric and Scott was sitting next to him. "I know you didn’t." 

Alan was stiff against his brother’s side. "What did you do—when you found out." 

"Well," Scott settled himself down a little more. "Mom was supposed to have come home that day, but as we waited we heard nothing. It was only after dinner that Dad finally received a phone call. He had started crying and it had freaked me out. The thought that it could have been Mom was the furthest thing from my mind." 

Scott sighed and wrapped his arm around his brother. "I got him to sit down and then he had us sit. He told us and well, we were shocked, and eventually started to cry." 

"What did everyone do?" 

"Virgil pretty much did what you did. He ran out of the house and hid—though Dad found him much faster than it took to find you. Still it was dark when he was brought back to the house. John just went upstairs and isolated himself. Gordon cried, he just did nothing but cry for a good long time." 

"What did I do?" 

"You? You cried too, but I’m pretty sure it was just because we were all crying. I don’t think you understood. Though you did ask for mom quite a few times, after awhile you stopped and your mood was mostly based off of ours."

"Then what happened." Alan relaxed a little and leaned up against Scott. 

"Why don’t you come and sit in my lap and I’ll tell you." 

Alan frowned for a moment, but then climbed into his big brother’s lap. 

Scott wrapped his arms around him and pulled him closer to him. "None of us knew what to do or think. I’m sure you know that feeling quite well now." 

Alan nodded as he leaned into his brother. 

"We didn’t talk a lot at first. Dad stayed in his office a lot, not doing much of anything. A little bit of work, drinking a little. He’d come out to make sure we’d eaten and were taken care of, but if we didn’t need him he stayed in there. I don’t think he slept in his room for a week at least."

"Was it because Mom used to sleep there too?" 

"I don’t know. Maybe a little, but I think he was just hurting too much. He just stayed there and worked as much as he could and just fell asleep there. Next morning he’d wake up and start it all over again." 

"What about John?" 

"For the first few days he’d locked himself in our room. Wouldn’t even let me in—I had to sleep on the couch. After that he was either in our room or up on the roof. He wouldn’t talk to any of us, and wouldn’t even come down for Dad." 

"But he started talking again right?" 

"He did, but I’ll get to that in a second. Virgil just wandered around and occasionally just cried for no real reason that I could figure out. Though he told me later it was just seeing things like the piano that reminded him of her—it would bring the grief right back to him." 

Alan nodded again. "What about Gordon?" 

"Gordon hadn’t been happy the entire time Mom had been gone. He hadn’t wanted her to leave and when he found out she wasn’t coming home, he just cried. He would often be curled up with Virgil or me and we’d just hold him till he cried himself to sleep. When he’d wake up he’d be sad, but it looked like he’d break out crying at any moment." 

"That sounds really miserable." 

"It was. I tried my best not to think about what had happened. Tried to push it to the back of my mind. My job was to watch you guys, I didn’t have time to worry about myself." 

Alan pushed himself away from his brother and looked up at him. "But that’s not good either." 

Scott laughed a little. "No it wasn’t. After a week Dad sent us back to school because it’s believed that getting back into a routine would help with the healing."

"Did it help?"

"I think it would have if we had spent the previous week healing instead of just ignoring what had happened." 

"What do you mean?" 

"None of us did good in school. None of us were talking, paying attention, or even doing our work. Dad had been called to school several times for all of us so he pulled us out of school after two weeks." 

"What did he do?" 

"He made us all go to Wichita, to a doctor."

"You were sick?" 

"Kind of. They were a psychologist. It was someone who studied how people—especially kids—dealt with loss. We went to sessions both individually and as a family for the next two weeks." 

"What did you do?" 

"We talked mostly." 

"Did it help?" 

"Yeah. It helped a lot. I had thought talking about Mom would hurt more than the idea of her being gone, but it didn’t. I mean it was sad—we cried a lot, even Dad—but it helped to have our feelings out in the open rather than trapped inside." 

Alan nodded and snuggled into Scott’s chest. 

"That’s why I’d rather you come down and talk to us than hide up here." 

"It’s hard though." 

"What’s making it so hard?" 

"It’s probably stupid." 

"I promise you it’s not." 

Alan frowned a little and hid his face in Scott’s shirt. "Everyone acts like Dad. I never noticed it before, but—" 

Scott couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. 

"See, told you it was stupid." The tears started to escape again and Alan struggled to keep them in. 

"No, I don't think it’s stupid. You’re right, we all act like Dad, especially you." 

"Me?" 

"Yeah. Right now, you remind me of how he was when we lost mom. But even before now, there is so much Dad in you it is crazy. It’s like looking at a mini Dad." 

"But I don’t look like Dad. Not like you do." 

"No, but you do resemble him and boy do you act like him. Sometimes you walk like him, laugh like him, you have his energy and zeal. Even Grandma’s said that you remind her of Dad when he was little. Almost more so than the rest of us." 

Alan smiled a little, but it was getting harder to hold in the tears. He bit his lip and buried his face in Scott’s shirt again. 

"It’s okay to cry Allie. There’s nothing wrong with it. We’ve all cried a lot since we heard." 

"But you aren’t crying now and-and Gordon was excited to go swimming." 

"That’s because we’ve been talking. We haven’t been keeping things pent up like before—like what you’re doing." 

"But—it hurts." He couldn’t do it anymore. He gasped as a sob escaped and tears started to flood down his cheeks. 

Scott rocked him back and forth and held onto him tighter. "I know it does, and I’m sorry to say that it will never stop hurting. You’ll just get used to it, but it will still jump out and punch you when you’re least expecting it." 

Alan clung to his brother and cried. He wasn’t sure how long it had been when he finally calmed down but for once he didn’t fall asleep. 

"You ready to be with the others yet?" 

"Not really." 

"How about you take a quick shower first? Maybe you’ll feel a bit more like going down afterwards." 

Alan just shrugged, but Scott pulled him up with him as he stood and guided him to the bathroom. 

Alan took a very slow shower, mostly just standing under the spray of water until Scott reminded him through the door to use the soap and the shampoo. 

When Alan finally emerged he felt a great deal better, but didn’t want to admit that to Scott, still he took his brother’s offered hand and and followed him out of the room. 

"Allie!" Gordon jumped from his seat and pulled Alan into a hug, only he didn’t spin him around this time. He held Alan tightly and buried his head in his shoulder. 

Alan was shocked. It was soft, but his brother was actually crying. 

"I’m sorry Allie. I didn’t mean to run you off. I just thought—" 

Alan wrapped his arms around his brother and squeezed him right back. "It wasn’t your fault." 

Gordon pulled away and Alan could see his eyes were red with fresh tears. "Come on, we were just talking."  
Alan followed his brother down to the couches and sat down between his grandma and John. He looked around and everyone’s eyes were a little red and there was a box of tissues on the table in front of them. 

"We were just—" Virgil had to clear his throat. "—talking about Dad."

Alan nodded. 

"I was only six when he bought me my first telescope." John smiled next to him. "He had one of course, but I had accidentally broken it the week before." 

Alan looked up at his brother a little shocked. "Did you get in trouble?" 

"A little, I mean he was upset, but it had been an accident so the main rule with the new one was that I couldn’t set it up alone, he had to help. But that ended up being a good thing cause I’ll never forget all the times he sat up with me and we looked up at the stars together." John smiled but reached up with a tissue and wiped at his eyes. 

"I think dad got frustrated with me a lot when I was little—" 

"We all got frustrated with you when you were little." Virgil smiled over at Gordon and everyone laughed. 

"Haha. But anyways. When Dad first sent us off to boarding school it kind of felt like he was handing us off. I know, Scott, you said he had his reasons and to trust him—and well, you were right—but at the time it didn’t feel like it. I mean, yeah, it was a good school and the swim program was great, but I just felt like he didn’t want to deal with us." Gordon looked down at his hands with a sad smile on his lips. 

"It wasn’t like that Gordon—" Scott started but Gordon stopped him with the same gesture their dad always used. 

"Let me finish." He flashed a small smile at Scott and he relented. "That was until I was in my first meet. He was right there, front row, cheering me on. And then the second and the third. I don’t think he missed a single meet that first year." Gordon grinned as he reached up and wiped his own tears. "He told me—after I had won my first tournament—that he loved to watch me swim and loved to see how happy I was when I swam. It was after that that I decided that I wanted to do something underwater, something sciency to make him even more proud." 

Alan smiled and pulled his knees up, cuddling up next to his grandma a bit more. 

"I remember when I first started learning to play the piano. It was when Mom was still around, but he was home and in his office. I thought I’d practice a bit—Mom was in the kitchen I think cleaning up after dinner. I had started playing but was making all kinds of mistakes. It had only been a few minutes when I heard the door open to his office. I stopped and turned around to apologize figuring it was my music that was bothering him. Instead he shook his head and sat down in his chair and told me to keep going. That work was giving him a headache and he wanted to relax listening to me." Virgil smiled a little. "He’d always make an excuse like that to come out and listen while I practiced." 

Scott reached up and squeezed Virgil’s shoulder. "He was proud of us all. The first time I expressed an interest in flying, well, it was one of the biggest smiles I can remember him making. He’d take me up anytime I wanted to at first. Though he did have to say no the older I got—with you guys around and him trying to get his company and IR up and running—still, I could see how happy it made him. Though he would occasionally ask to make sure I was still happy. I think he was well aware of what we did to make him happy and what we did for ourselves. He never wanted us to feel we had to do something because he expected it." Scott turned to Alan and caught his eye. "You remember that okay?" 

Alan nodded and wiped at his eyes, the tears flowing again. 

Grandma squeezed him a little. "Do you have any memories of your dad?" 

Alan shrugged a little. "It was fun before I went away to school. He showed me around the island and taught me how to climb. Hey Gordon, you that cove on the other side of the island?" 

"What cove?" Gordon blinked and tilted his head. 

"You don’t know about it?" Virgil laughed a little. "I figured you would have been the first to find it!" 

"Well, I don’t. Allie, you’re gonna have to show me this. I can’t believe dad never told me!" 

Alan sunk down into the couch a little embarrassed. "Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you mad—" 

"Hey, It’s okay. I’m not mad." Gordon smiled at his brother. "We all have little things that dad did with us alone." 

"Just like he would almost always make himself available to you when you wanted to talk." Scott leaned forward a little so that he could get a better look at his brother. "And do you guys remember when Alan brought home his first straight A report card last year?" 

John laughed next to him. "He wouldn’t stop talking about it. He was so proud of you." 

Alan blushed a little. "I do remember when I used to sit in his lap at the end of the day and tell him all about my adventures." A small smile snuck onto his lips. "For awhile we’d watch all those old B-movies when he was done with work." 

"So that’s why you love those old movies so much." Scott couldn’t help but chuckle a little. 

Alan shrugged a little. "They’re fun." 

"And there’s nothing wrong with that." Grandma gave him a squeeze. "Your dad was introduced to those movies by his dad. So I’m glad he found someone to pass them onto." 

"And I’m glad it was you and not me." Gordon flashed a grin at his little brother. "Those things are so boring!" 

Alan just stuck his tongue out at him. 

"Don’t worry Allie, I’ll watch them with you if you want." Virgil was laughing but watching his littlest brother as well. "Just not too much." 

There was a little bit of laughter from all of them, but it didn’t last long. 

"So, what’s going to happen now?" Alan was quiet, still cuddled up next to his grandma not really looking at anyone. 

"What do you mean?" 

"This. IR. It was Dad’s dream. You’re still going to keep it going right?" Alan pulled away from his grandma as he talked and sat up finally looking at his brothers. 

His brothers looked at each other for a moment before Scott moved to kneel before his little brother. "We’ve talked about it a lot and disbanding IR is the last thing any of us want to do." 

Alan wiped at his eyes and rubbed his face roughly. He cleared his throat and gave his brother his most serious look. "Good. I want to help." 

Scott smiled and he could hear the others chuckling a bit. "I’m sure we can find some things for you to help out with when you’re home on breaks." 

Alan’s face remained stern as he shook his head. "No. I’ll study hard, I’ll take extra classes. I want to train and become an actual member." 

Scott rocked back on his heels a little and glanced over at Virgil. 

Alan followed his brother’s look and saw Virgil smile and nod. 

"Allie, remember Dad telling you he was going to work with you on something this summer?" 

Alan’s gaze returned to Scott and he nodded. 

"We thought we’d wait till summer—like Dad had planned—but Dad was going to start your training. Virgil and I thought you’d like to maybe start riding along on some rescues and he agreed." 

"Really?! So I can stay? I can start training now?" 

Scott pinched his lips a little. "I’m not sure staying here would be much fun. You wouldn’t have anyone to play with, you may never see your friends again either." 

Alan gave a small shrug. "It’s not like we thought we’d be friends forever or anything like that. We all kinda knew we’d go off to other schools after next year. Dad was already talking to me about what middle and high school I’d go to. And I’d rather be here with you guys anyways. I’m sure I can get Gordon to play with me—"

"Absolutely!" 

"—and I would learn loads watching and training with you all!" 

Scott’s eyebrows were scrunched together in thought. "What do you think, Grandma?" 

"I think we should sit on it for now." 

"But Grandma!" Alan turned to her with a frown. 

"Let me talk." She waited until Alan had nodded. "Finish out your school year and come back for summer. You can start your training and seeing how everything goes then we can talk about what’s going to happen next year." 

"Why do we have to wait?" Alan still wasn’t happy with the answer. He wanted to get started now. 

"There is a lot of paperwork we’ve got to take care of." Scott stood and instead sat down on the table. "And there is something I need to talk about with you, John, and Gordon." 

"What’s up?" Gordon’s attention was piqued and he leaned forward. 

"I thought we already touched upon everything?" John too looked interested and a little confused. 

"Sorry, I was waiting till you were all here cause it involves all three of you—though John only for a year but still—" 

"Ah, I see." John gave a nod of understanding and leaned back. "Then I think my vote shouldn’t matter. It’s up to Gordon and Alan." 

"What? What are you talking about?" 

Scott glanced over at their Grandma before taking in a deep breath. "With Dad gone, you guys need an official guardian. Someone who’s responsible for you. According to the lawyers it’s up to you who you want as your guardian." 

"Like replace Dad?" Alan frowned. 

"No, no. Not a replacement, but just someone to sign your school stuff, or to take the call if you get sent to the principle’s office—" Scott glanced over at Gordon at the comment. 

Gordon just rolled his eyes. "Get caught once pulling a prank and you’re labeled for life." 

Alan couldn’t help but giggle. 

"But it’s just something official. It could be me, or Grandma, or even Virgil if you wanted." 

Alan looked around at the three of them. Scott looked nervous, Virgil looked relaxed with a smile, and Grandma just looked down at him with a smile. "I want it to be you Scotty. I want you to be my new parent." 

"Yeah, same for me. You’re already a great big bro, being a da—parental figure shouldn’t be that much of a step up for you." Gordon grinned ear to ear, but there was still a bit of wetness in the corner of his eyes. 

"But what do we call you? You’re not a parent, or a grandparent, but you’re just my brother, but you’re my guardian too—" Alan frowned a little as he thought. 

"You can just call me Scott. I’m still your brother, nothing has changed. Like I said, it’s just an official thing." 

Alan smiled and stood, climbed up into Scott’s lap and hugged him. "You’re going to be a great guardian." 

"Thanks." Scott squeezed him back. 

"You’re going to be in charge of everything, aren’t you?" Alan pulled a way and looked up at him. "IR and Dad’s company?" 

"Probably, yeah. We’ve got some meetings with the board of directors and too much paperwork, but—" Scott took in a deep breath, tears threatening him for the first time that Alan had seen that day. 

Alan leaned in and squeezed his brother even tighter. "You’re going to be the best and Dad is gonna be super proud of you." 

Scott sniffed and squeezed his brother right back. 

"Your father would be proud of anything you do, he loved you all and there’s nothing that would change that." 

"Grandma’s right." Virgil moved to sit next to Scott on the table and ruffled Alan’s hair a little. "Dad gave us everything we need to do it right. He’s part of everything around us." 

There was a moment of silence as everyone thought about what had been said. 

"You know what this calls for right?" Gordon stood up and stretched his arms a bit. "Family hug time! And Johnny, you’re not exempt." 

John rolled his eyes. "Please stop calling me Johnny. I’m not a kid anymore." 

"Not listening, don’t care, get your butt over here." 

They all laughed a bit as Scott stood up with Alan still wrapped around his torso. Virgil wrapped one arm around Scott, the other around their grandma. Gordon was on the other side, his arms around John and Scott and they smushed their littlest brother in the middle. 

Alan realized his brothers were right. He couldn’t just hide in his room forever. His father was gone and there was nothing any of them could do to change that. But there was plenty they could do to move on and make sure they continued with their lives in a way that their father would be proud of. 

Alan already knew he was going to be an astronaut like his father and what he needed to do and study to reach that goal. There was nothing that was going to stop him from doing that or what he had been taught by his father; keep his head up, mind clear, never give up, and keep moving forward.


End file.
